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PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



BY 



MARION FLORENCE LANSING, M.A. 

1 \ 



ILLUSTRATED 

BY REPRODUCTIONS OF DRAWINGS 

FROM OLD ENGRAVINGS 



GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



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COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY MARION FLORENCE LANSING 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



©CU300389 



PREFACE 

Mediaeval Builders of the Modern World 

History has no period which makes a more vivid appeal 
to the young reader than the thousand years which we 
call the Middle Ages. The mediaeval world is just such 
a world as he would like to live in, where knights ride off 
on crusades, and kings wander out from their palaces in 
disguise ; where heroes sail away to explore unknown 
seas, and gay cavaliers sally forth to tournament and 
joust. It requires no effort to interest boys and girls in 
this part of history. They turn to it with the enthusiasm 
with which they seize fairy tales and legends of chivalry 
and romance, and find in its reality a satisfying response 
to the desire for a true story. 

The child's interest being assured, the problem is to 
make this interest of use in the process of his education. 
The purpose of this series is to relate this fascinating and 
heroic past to the present by telling the stories from the 
point of view of the contribution of the Middle Ages to 
the world of to-day. The heroes gain a new importance 
and the stories a new meaning by this treatment. Who 
the '^ mediaeval builders " were may be seen by the titles 
of the following books, which make up the series : " Bar- 
barian and Noble," " Patriots and Tyrants," " Kings and 
Common Folk," '' Craftsman and Artist," " Cavalier and 
Courtier," " Sea Kings and Explorers." 



vi PREFACE 

Patriots and Tyrants 
'' Pages of the Past that teach the Future " 

So all true history might be characterized, and espe- 
cially such stories of the growth of freedom and of the 
beginnings of government as these tales of " Patriots and 
lyrants." We are apt to take our liberties as a matter 
of course. It is good for us to recall how hardly they 
were won and how dearly prized by our ancestors. The 
Teuton barbarian brought to the world the love of per- 
sonal independence. It has taken him fifteen centuries 
to work it out into our modern systems of government, 
and in the process all our nations have been founded. 
In these stories that development is pictured. We see 
how every patriot was working for the universal rights of 
man. The author has tried to guard against special plead- 
ing for the heroes. The tyrant had often something of 
the patriot, and the methods of the patriots might seem 
to modern judgment to savor of tyranny. But it took 
them all to build up the free governments of to-day. Our 
American struggle for liberty gains new importance when 
it becomes the culmination of fifteen centuries of effort 
in the Old World. 

So this book becomes to the child a textbook of civics 

in story form, in which each of the great foundation 

principles of liberty appears in its picturesque mediaeval 

beginnings. 

M. F. L. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Patriots and Tyrants i 

Three Teuton Boys 3 

King Marbod 6 

Hermann the Deliverer 12 

The Story of Venice 23 

Charlemagne and Wittekind 40 

The Choosing of a King 51 

Henry the Fowler 59 

Hereward the Saxon 70 

Frederick Barbarossa and the Lombard Cities 83 

King John and the Barons 93 

Simon of Montfort 99 

The Men of the Forest Cantons 112 

Robert Bruce 122 

Queen Philippa and the Citizens of Calais . .132 

Joan of. Arc . , . 141 

The "Beggars" of Holland 155 

NOTES 171 




KING JOHN GRANTING THE 
MAGNA CHARTA 



PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



^^ I .FREEDOM/' says the German poet, ''is surely 
A a very precious jewel. Happy is he who has 
it and can keep it in peace. To him it matters not 
whether he has much besides. It is enough to him 
that he is free." 

So men have felt in every land and in every age. 
It has seemed to them a light thing to give up home 
and friends and family, and all which made life dear, 
if haply they might preserve for themselves and for 
their children this priceless jewel of freedom. Be- 
cause love of freedom can never be selfish, there 
grows up with it a greater thing, which the Germans 
call " Fatherland-love," and which we, in our shorter 
word borrowed from Roman speech, name " Patriot- 
ism." Patriotism is broader than love of freedom, 
for the patriot desires not only that he shall be free, 
but that his brothers and his neighbors and all who 
speak his tongue and dwell in his land, — yea, and 
the land itself, — shall be as free as he. 

In the olden days freedom was again and again in 
danger. Men and nations were governed too often 



2 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

by the law that '' Might makes Right." This is the 
exact opposite of the law of freedom, which says 
that QYcry man has certain rights just because he is 
a human being. The patriots did not know at first 
exactly what these rights were, but they found out 
that if certain things were taken away, life was un- 
bearable to them. So they worked out, each in his 
own nation, what the universal rights of men were, 
and these are our laws of liberty. 

Sometimes a king thought that he could do any- 
thing he pleased. These rulers were called tyrants. 
They were not always wicked men ; often they 
meant to do the people good, but they went about 
it in the wrong way by taking away their freedom. 
Sometimes a nation did the same thing. Rome 
thought that civilization would come more quickly if 
every other people became Roman. Perhaps it might 
have come a century sooner, but it would have been a 
sorry thing if the barbarian peoples had exchanged 
their precious jewel of freedom for a mere outer 
shell of civilization, from which the heart was gone. 

So every nation of Europe has a roll of honor of 
''Men of Freedom " ; and because these patriots 
helped to win for us our liberties, their stories be- 
long to us, especially as we are a nation made up 
from all peoples of the Old World. 



THREE TEUTON BOYS 

10 NG, long ago, at the time when our calendar 
-• begins, there lived in the imperial city of Rome 
three Teuton boys. They came from Old Germany, 
and are the first boys of our own race about whom 
we know anything ; for all English-speaking peoples 
are descended from the Teutons, who lived in the 
eastern part of Europe, which the Romans called 
Germany. Their names were Hermann, Flavus, and 
Marbod. Marbod was the oldest by eight or ten 
years. He was a lad of noble family, from the tribe 
of Marcomans, who lived in South Germany. Her- 
mann and Flavus were brothers, sons of Sigimer, an 
honored North German chief. 

The three come together in our story because they 
all spent their childhood in Rome. The Romans 
on their long expeditions used to invite the best boys 
and young men of the barbarian tribes with which 
they had had dealings to go back with them and 
receive training in the Roman language and ways. 
This they did in the hope that when the boys grew 
up they would stay in the Roman armies as paid 
soldiers and would help Rome to conquer the world. 

3 



4 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Their fathers let the boys go because they wanted 
them to see something of the world and to learn 
Roman ways, which were then the standard for every 
other nation. 

Life in the wonderful city of Rome seemed 
strange and marvelous to these fair-haired barbarians 
from the north. They had never seen a city of paved 
streets and stone houses, for the Teutons lived in 
villages of log huts scattered here and there through 
a wide forest land. Roman boys had been to school 
all their lives, but these lads had never seen a school- 
room. Why should there be schools where no one 
knew nor cared to know how to read or write ? His- 
tory they knew, though they did not call it by that 
name. It had been told to them by their fathers and 
by the old men of the tribe as it had been handed 
down to them by their fathers and grandfathers. 

Our three Teuton boys had not, however, been idle 
all their lives. They had had lessons to learn in the 
wilderness, and it had been needful that they learn 
them well, for on them depended their living. A 
Teuton boy must be skillful in the hunt, for how else 
could he obtain food } There were no stores, and no 
gold with which to buy provisions if there had been 
stores. Deer he could have for his dinner if he 
killed it ; fish if he fished in the rivers ; bread if he 



THE GOLDEN CHAIN 5 

plowed the ground in the spring, scattered seed in the 
furrows, cut the grain when it came up, and threshed 
it with the flail till the flour was ready for mixing and 
baking. If he did these things with skill and energy, 
he could live royally, for the land was rich and fertile 
and well stocked with game. 

Such accomplishments the boys found of little use 
in their new home, but they learned quickly to do in 
Rome as the Romans did. At first they were laughed 
at for their clumsy ways and their halting efforts to 
speak Latin ; but it was not many months before 
they exchanged the free, wide tread of the forest for 
the soldierly step of the Roman drill. They were 
learning w^hat their fathers had sent them to learn. 
As the years passed, each was made an officer in the 
army; each won his Roman citizenship; each was 
admitted to the small circle of favorite courtiers of 
the great Emperor Augustus ; and each wore the 
golden chain of Roman knighthood around his 
neck. But what of the hearts that beat beneath these 
chains } Had they become Roman .? Had the desire 
of the Romans been realized, and were these tall, 
splendid young Teutons ready to spend their lives 
in Rome's legions, fighting her battles for her ? His- 
tory gives the answer of each boy in the story of his 
after life. 



KING MARBOD 

AS Marbod was the oldest, and the first to come to 
^ the Roman court, so he was the first to return 
to his own land, where his tribe welcomed the hand- 
some young noble eagerly, and gave to him the 
chieftainship. 

This was about eight years after the brave Roman 
general Drusus, whose story you have read in " Bar- 
barian and Noble," had tried to conquer Germany 
and had met his death in the northern forests. The 
fear of the conqueror was upon all the Teuton tribes, 
for they knew that peace could not last. Ere many 
days Roman armies would cross the Rhine and the 
Danube, and try once again to set up their rule 
throughout Germany. So the people rejoiced at the 
return of the strong, Roman-trained leader, for his 
coming showed that he loved his fatherland more 
than he loved the Roman court. 

The people were right. Marbod had worn the 
golden chain, but a Teuton heart beat beneath it. 
He had learned the Roman arts of war and peace, 
but there had never been a day, in all the years of 
training, when his anger had not been stirred by the 



TEUTON UNION 7 

patronizing way in which the Roman nobles spoke 
of him and his people as barbarians. He had given 
obedience where he must, but he had given it with 
a proud bearing which had shown that willingly he 
would take orders from no man. Now he went from 
tribe to tribe of the neighboring peoples, urging 
them to unite with him and with each other to with- 
stand the hated power of Roine. Singly they could do 
nothing ; together they would be strong. That was 
the burden of his message. By his eager enthusiasm 
and his burning words he won them over. '' To keep 
back the Romans," — that was the watchword of the 
union, and proud chiefs yielded for the sake of that 
cause the lonely independence which they had held 
so dear. Marbod was to be the general, and at his 
call they would come with their troops and together 
do battle with the Romans, when the dreaded day 
should come. 

Year after year Marbod strengthened the union, 
till there was a great federation banded together to 
uphold the freedom of the Teuton peoples. And 
Marbod was at the head. No Teuton had ever held 
such power. How did he use it ? There lay the test. 
The liberty-loving people had trusted him, and at 
his persuasion had surrendered part of their long- 
cherished independence. They had thought to make 



8 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

themselves members of a union ; they awoke to find 
themselves subjects of a king. 

Marbod had learned one lesson too many in the 
school of Rome, — he had learned the rule of one. 
In the court of the emperor he had seen how one 
man could rule a great kingdom, and the power 
which the tribes gave him tempted him too far. He 
announced that he was going to build a city, — the 
first city in all Germany ; and the people were glad. 
Now the Romans could no longer taunt them with 
being barbarians. They would have a city of their 
own, and make it strong and beautiful. So they 
gave of their time and money to build it. But when 
it was done, Marbod ordered that it be called Mar- 
bodstadt, which is to say, Marbod City, just as the 
emperor had called the latest city which he had built 
Augusta, or the city of Augustus. 

The people thought that in the center of their city 
there would be a great council hall, where, after the 
Teuton custom, the leaders of all the tribes would 
meet and discuss the affairs of the union. In the 
center of the city was a great castle and fort, with a 
treasure house, and here Marbod was to dwell. The 
center of South Germany was to be the palace of 
Marbod, as the center of Rome and of the world was 
the palace of Augustus. The Teutons had had for 



A TEUTON TYRANT 



9 



leaders chiefs elected by the people ; Marbod called 
himself King. The Teutons loved freedom and 
equality. Marbod created a bodyguard of men who 
should attend and wait on him whenever he sat in his 
council chamber or walked abroad. The Teutons 
came together to fight when there was need, Marbod 
insisted that there must be a standing army which 
should be waiting always at his call. 

When his power was established, Marbod wished 
others to see it. He opened his frontiers to Roman 
merchants. He invited Roman artists to come. In 
so far as he could he made his Teuton court like the 
great court of Rome, and he succeeded too well for 
the pleasure of the haughty world emperor. Mer- 
chants returned to Rome telling of the power of 
Marbod, — King Marbod, as he was called, — and 
the Roman court decided that here was too strong a 
neighbor. Marbod sent messengers to the emperor 
declaring that he had no thought of a break with 
Rome, still less of establishing a Teuton kingdom in 
defiance of the universal Roman empire ; but the 
emperor saw in him a dangerous power, and sent his 
son Tiberius to conduct a war against him. 

It was a long journey from Rome to South 
Germany. While Tiberius was on the march with 
his army, rumors reached him of a rising among the 



lO PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Dalmations and the Pannonians. He had expected 
to obtain an addition to his army from the troops 
which were stationed in these provinces. Now, five 
days' journey from Marbod's outposts, comes word 
that the uprising is proving dangerous, and that he 
must come instead to give help to the troops already 
there. 

The time seems at hand when the Roman power 
is to be broken. Here is the Roman army, hun- 
dreds of miles from possible help, marching between 
Marbod with his strong Teuton union, gathered for 
this very purpose, and the eastern provinces which 
have risen in revolt against the conqueror. It needs 
only that Marbod shall act. He must unite the 
revolting peoples. He must send swift messengers 
calling his Teuton brothers between the Rhine, the 
Weser, the Elbe, and the Danube to come together 
at this fortunate hour and strike the blow which shall 
save the land of the Teutons from Roman conquest. 

But the Marbod of these days is not the bold, 
impetuous young man who came back from Rome 
eager to unite his people against the tyrant nation. 
Tiberius has to deal with King Marbod, who proves 
to be a very different person. The Roman general 
hastens to send an embassy offering easy terms of 
peace. 



THE OUTCOME II 

'' Rome will make no more complaint of your 
Teuton kingdom," runs the message of the empe- 
ror's son. ''Your royal throne and your separate 
realm shall be assured to you. The strength of 
Rome shall be behind you, giving you help instead 
of taking away your power. Our friendship shall 
be yours." 

The favorableness of the terms convinces others 
of the Roman's desperate need. Marbod is blinded 
by the offers of personal security to him in his king- 
dom. At this crisis he is not strong enough to put 
to the test this Teuton union which is his work. 
He strikes a peace with the Roman, draws back his 
army, and announces to the other tribes that he has 
saved the land from a Roman invasion. What he 
has done is to save to the emperor a Roman army 
and a hold on the provinces east of the Rhine and 
the Danube. 



HERMANN THE DELIVERER 

WHAT were Hermann and Flavus doing in 
these years while Marbod was making himself 
a king ? They were still at Rome. Marbod was eight 
or ten years older than Hermann, who was therefore 
only a child when Marbod left the court. 

Of Flavus we know almost nothing. We do not 
even know what his German name was, for Flavus 
was his Latin name, just as Arminius was the Latin 
form of Hermann. What we know of Hermann we 
get only from Roman writers, but the stories they 
tell show us what a brave, handsome boy he must 
have been, and we say to ourselves, '' If the Romans, 
whose bitterest enemy he became, praised him like 
this, what would his own people have said of him, 
if there had been Teuton historians ? " 

This is the picture that his superior officer in the 
army gives of him : ''He was a youth of noble blood, 
brave, and bold in action. He was quick, too, and 
far brighter than the average barbarian. In a moment 
he could understand a situation and grasp quickly the 
right thing to be done. Moreover, he was full of 
spirit. From his bright blue eyes streamed the fire 



ROMAN RULE 



13 



of spirit and energy. There was something especially 
attractive about him." 

Hermann was sixteen years old in the year of the 
birth of Christ, and he stayed at Rome till he was 
twenty-three. During his last years in the army there 
came to him news of the way the Roman officers 
were oppressing his people. A new governor, Varus, 
had been moved from Syria, where the people had 
hated him, and sent to the provinces beyond the 
Rhine. He and his officers cared nothing about 
Teuton ways nor customs. They set to work to make 
Old Germany a Roman province, and this is the way 
they did it. They said to the Teutons (or if they did 
not say it in so many words, they showed plainly 
enough that this was what they thought) : '' You 
Teutons are so rude and rough that we always call 
you barbarians. The wise men who rule you are 
barbarians, too, and your priests and your judges are 
barbarians, and by that we mean that they do not 
know how to rule in the right way, which is the 
Roman way. Even your language sounds rough and 
harsh to our ears. For this reason we have decided 
that it will be better for you to have our wise men 
rule over you, our priests and our judges. Also we 
command that all the business of the land be done 
in our beautiful, pleasant-sounding speech. Because 



14 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

it will cost a great deal to govern you in this way, 
you must give us, each one of you, part of your corn 
and of the money which you make in trading, and 
that we will call a tax." 

The Teutons had never heard of taxes. To them 
money paid by one people to another was tribute, 
such as the Romans themselves had paid to keep 
Attila and his Huns from attacking their cities ; and 
for a nation to pay tribute was a sign that its inde- 
pendence was gone. 

'' We are forced to give up our language and our 
customs and our laws, and then, in addition, to pay 
for this system which we hate," they said. *' What, 
then, is left to us of our ancient liberty ? " 

This was the report that came to the young soldier 
Hermann, and he gave up his court life and came 
back in all haste to his home. He tried to persuade 
Flavus to return with him, but Flavus chose to stay 
in Rome. '' What can one man do against such a 
mighty power as Rome .? " he said. 

So Hermann went back alone to his fatherland. 
As Marbod had worked among the tribes of South 
Germany eight years before, so he labored among the 
people of North Germany. He did not have to rouse 
them to anger ; they were angry already with the 
Romans ; but they were hopeless. '' What can we 




15 



1 6 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

do ? " they said. " The Romans are stronger than 
we." Hermann had married the fair Thusnelda, 
daughter of the powerful chief Segestes, and now 
even Segestes refused to join him. 

'' I prefer ancient friendship to new connections ; 
my voice is for peace," he said ; and in one of Her- 
mann's absences he exercised the old Teuton author- 
ity of a father over a daughter and gave Thusnelda 
into Roman custody, where, after war broke out, she 
was held a prisoner. 

The loss of his wife roused Hermann to new bit- 
terness. He went everywhere through the land, call- 
ing upon the tribes to rise against Rome. 

'' To other nations punishments and taxes are 
unknown, as they were to our fathers. They speak 
freely the language of their ancestors, not the tongue 
of a conqueror. Behold the exploits of the Romans, 
the glory of a warlike nation ! With mighty num- 
bers they have led a woman into captivity ! Other 
nations are happy ; they are ignorant of the Roman. 
Shall we who have dared nobly for our liberties 
remain under the Roman yoke ? If your country 
is dear to you, if the glory of your ancestors is 
near your hearts, if liberty is of any value to you, 
follow Hermann. I will marshal you to glory and 
to freedom ! " 



THE TEUTOBURG FOREST 17 

With such burning words he inflamed the people, 
and when he gave the word to strike, they were ready 
to flock to his standard. Secretly he made his plans, 
and when he knew that Varus and his army were 
starting on a march to put down a revolt among the 
tribes, he gathered his countrymen by night, and 
prepared to meet the troops in the Teutoburg forest. 
The Romans were surprised ; the ground under their 
feet was swamp land where they could not fight to 
advantage ; and a terrible three-days battle took place 
in which the Teutons, with Hermann at their head, 
were victorious. The Roman legions were lost, and 
the news, when it came to Rome, created panic at the 
capital. If the barbarians could do this, would they 
not soon come down on Rome itself ? ''In ten days," 
said the emperor, '' they may be here" ; and the whole 
city was in terror. But the Germans had no such 
thought. They had driven the oppressor out of 
their land. They had saved their homes from Roman 
rule. To us these terrible battles seem a dreadful 
thing, and well they may ; but we must remember 
that these were rough times, when all nations would 
have seemed to us cruel and barbarous. The battle 
of the Teutoburg forest took place only nine years 
after the birth of Christ ; so all this happened more 
than nineteen hundred years ago. But if the question 



1 8 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

of who was to rule Europe was to be settled by war, 
as all questions were in those days, we who are of 
Hermann's own race and blood must rejoice that the 
victory was on the side of freedom for our ancestors. 
By his victory the Roman empire was halted at the 
river Rhine, and on the east of that great river our 
forefathers were free to develop their systems of law, 
which preserved and gave to the modern world the 
chief glory of the Teutons, — the love of independ- 
ence, which is the foundation of all our law and 
government. 

Hermann did not do all this in one battle. The 
Romans sent other armies across the river, and 
Hermann met them many times again ; but he was 
never defeated. The Romans could not regain their 
power. Once his brother Flavus was in the army 
which fought against him, — Flavus, who had served 
all these years in the Roman army and had become 
so much a Roman that his German name has been 
lost to history, and we would not know that he had 
ever been a German if it were not for his relation to 
Hermann. There is a strange story of a meeting 
between the two, which took place on the evening 
before a great battle. Hermann went down to the 
river which lay between the two camps, and called 
across that he would speak to Flavus; and when 



HERMANN AND FLAVUS 19 

Flavus came, the two brothers talked to each other 
across the stream in this wise : Flavus had lost an 
eye in battle, and Hermann, noticing it, began, 
'' Whence that disfigurement of features ? " 

He was told the battle and the place where it had 
happened. 

' 'And what, ' ' he asked, ' ' has been your recompense ? ' ' 

''I have received," said Flavus, ''an increase of 
pay, a military chain, an ornamental crown, and other 
honors." 

Hermann burst into a laugh of scorn and indig- 
nation. 

" They are the wages," he said, " of a slave cheaply 
purchased." 

A warm dispute followed. Flavus told of the 
majesty of Rome, of the power of the Caesars, of 
the weight with which their vengeance fell on the 
obstinate, and the mercy shown to nations which 
submitted willingly. Hermann on his side urged 
the rights of men born in freedom, the ancient law 
of liberty, and the love of country. 

"Your mother," he added, "joins me in earn- 
est supplication ; we both conjure you not to desert 
your family and friends and country, but to return 
and have the great glory of commanding armies in 
defense of your fatherland." 



20 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

The conversation ended in sharp words, and while 
Hermann went back to his people, Flavus returned 
to the Roman camp, and we never hear of him again. 

Hermann had occasion during these years to ap- 
peal also to Marbod for help against the Romans, 
but Marbod declined to send his army. Then Mar- 
bod's people rose up against him, and many of them 
went over to Hermann and fought by his side. For 
fifteen years the two leaders dwelt in North and 
South Germany, and then the differences between 
them came to a settlement by war. Hermann had 
spent his time, since the Romans departed, trying 
to unite his people and to show them that it would 
be better for them to make a great union of tribes 
But always they accused him of desiring power, and 
pointed to Marbod as an example. When the two 
came to battle, so many of Marbod 's allies went 
over to Hermann that, though he was not defeated, 
he knew it was not safe for him to stay in the coun- 
try. He fled away to Italy and begged protection of 
the Roman emperor, and the emperor gave him a 
house in northern Italy, where he lived for the re- 
maining twenty years of his life. '' Hated by all his 
people," says the chronicler, ''he grew gray in in- 
dolence, dying, as he had lived, under the power 
of Rome." 



THE DELIVERER 21 

So Hermann was left to do his work alone. His 
mother, who had always supported him, died ; his 
brother was in the Roman army ; his wife was a 
Roman prisoner ; his son had been born on Roman 
soil and the father had never seen him. Rival chiefs 
were jealous of him, thinking that, like Marbod, he 
sought power for himself, or at least would take 
away their authority. When he was only thirty-seven 
years old, he was killed by a member of his own 
family. 

Thus died this great patriot ; and gradually, after 
many years, people came to see what a great gift of 
freedom he had made to the world through the 
Teuton race. This is what the great Roman his- 
torian Tacitus writes about him : ''He was undoubt- 
edly the deliverer of the Teutons. He had not, like 
the kings and generals of a former day, the infancy 
of Rome to meet ; he dared to grapple with the 
Roman power in its maturity and strength. To this 
noble man, — who in seven years had won freedom 
for his nation, who had given up not merely body and 
life but wife and home for his country, — to him his 
people gave what it had to give, an eternal place in 
its songs of heroes." 

To-day the Teutoburg forest is still dense and 
wild, but there are open spots here and there. On 



22 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

the highest of these, upon a height overlooking the 
whole forest, stands a monument to Hermann. The 
pedestal of granite is in the form of a temple, ninety 
feet high, and above it rises a colossal bronze statue 
of the patriot. He stands with soldierly erectness, 
holding a spear in his uplifted hand, looking out 
upon the land which he saved. Travelers entering 
the region see from a distance of fifty miles this 
heroic figure, and are told by the patriotic Germans 
the story of his life. Thus the people of Germany 
have honored their deliverer, who is also the de- 
liverer of the whole Teuton race, — our first ''Man 
of Freedom." 



THE STORY OF VENICE 

OVER the seas in Italy there stands a wonderful 
city which is built half on water and half on 
land. Its streets we should not call streets at all, for 
they are streams and canals of water. When one 
wishes to go from one part of the city to another, 
one steps from one's own doorway into a boat or 
gondola instead of a carriage or car. These streets 
of blue water spanned by arched bridges and lined 
with marble palaces make Venice one of the most 
beautiful cities in the world ; but if you went there, 
you would be sure to wonder why men went to 
the trouble of building these wonderful palaces and 
cathedrals on the shifting sand bars of the Medi- 
terranean when they had all the firm land of Italy 
behind them. Perhaps you would ask of some Vene- 
tian the reason, and he would tell you this story, of 
which the men of Venice are very proud, for it is 
one of the earliest stories of liberty. 

Many centuries ago the fair land of Italy was in 
sore distress. There came down over the Alps one 
nation after another of wild northern barbarians. 
They descended into the provinces of Italy like a 

23 



24 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

whirlwind, trampling down the vineyards and setting' 
fire to towns and villages. The first to come was 
Alaric with his Goths, and the whole land was laid 
waste by his armies, as they moved on towards Rome. 
Then Alaric died and was laid to rest in the river 
Busento, and for a time the land had rest. 

It was fifty years before the next barbarian con- 
queror came, but when he appeared, the invasion of 
Alaric was as a summer wind compared to a wild 
hurricane, for this was Attila the Hun ; Attila the 
Destroyer, of whom it was said that where he stepped 
grass never grew again ; Attila the Scourge of God, 
who declared that he would cross over into Italy to 
hunt, and when they asked him what he would hunt, 
said with a brutal laugh, '' Hunt ? What should I 
hunt but Romans ? " 

Down over the Alps he came to the fair cities of 
northern Italy, with their sculptured halls and their 
marble villas, and laid them waste. Padua and Con- 
cordia, Milan, Turin, and Aquileia fell before him, 
but the last to fall was Aquileia. For three months 
the city held out, and the barbarians, who were un- 
used to sieges and did not know how '' to fight against 
stone walls," were at their wits' end. One day as 
Attila gazed at the city walls and pondered how he 
might get past them, he saw the storks leaving their 



THE WOODEN SENTINELS 25 

nests and flying with their young away from the city. 
By their going he knew that famine had set in, and 
he rejoiced that the obstinate citizens who had held 
out against his swords must yield before the prospect 
of starvation. 

So Attila waited, sure that each day would be the 
last, and that the people would throw open the gates 
and surrender the city to him. But the people of 
Aquileia were too clever for the dull barbarian. One 
day he noticed that a stork lighted on the figure of 
a sentinel standing at one of the towers, and perched 
there. *' Surely a stork would not light upon a man," 
said Attila to himself, and he ordered an attack on 
the city. Then he found that these sentinels who 
had been guarding the walls against him were blocks 
of wood cut in the form of men. The citizens had 
set them up to deceive the Huns, while they, with 
their women and children, were escaping by night 
from the city. Not all had yet escaped, but, while 
Attila and his warriors were breaking down the altars 
and robbing the palaces of their treasure, a large 
company of Aquileians were making their way along 
the shores of the Mediterranean, seeking some place 
of refuge from the barbarian. 

As they journeyed along the shore, giving in every 
village the terrible word, '' The Huns are upon us," 



26 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

they came to a place where there was a bay or lagoon 
almost landlocked by a group of low islands which 
stretched across its mouth. The fugitives looked at 
these islands and said, " There we should have water 
between us and the Huns ; there if anywhere we 
should be safe." The kindly fisher folk lent them 
light boats, and they went over to the farthest island 
and stretched awnings and built huts and dwelt in 
safety ; and that was the beginning of Venice. 

Did they not go back to their city when Attila and 
the Huns were gone .? you ask. Some of them did, 
— many of them ; but they came back. From that 
time on Italy had no rest. The Alans and Vandals 
wandered through the land and fought with the 
Goths and Romans, and everywhere there was war 
and horror save on the Venetian islands. There 
the people dwelt in peace. 

It was a simple life that could be lived on the low 
sand banks. No one could lord it over his neighbor, 
for no one's house was better than any other, and 
every one earned his living by fishing or making 
salt, which could be exchanged on the mainland for 
cloth and provisions, and so served as money. Men 
of all classes worked together deepening the channels 
so that their boats might pass through, and driving 




27 



28 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

posts and making walls of woven reeds, which they 
bound against the banks of the islands to keep the 
sand from washing away. To build a house they 
drove posts and laid walls which would hold the sand 
foundations firm, and then built a stairway to the 
first floor, where the living room was to be. Their 
boats they kept tied like horses to the posts of 
the lower room. Gradually the islands (there were 
twelve larger ones and many small ones) came to 
be places of refuge from the barbarians. The island 
people were hospitable and welcomed those who 
sought shelter, — with this exception, which is writ- 
ten in their books, ''They would receive no man 
who was a slave, nor a murderer, nor a man of 
wicked life." 

During the time of peace, when Theodoric ruled 
the land, the little fishing setdement grew and be- 
came prosperous. Then the Lombards came down 
on Italy, and as usual they came first to the cities of 
Aquileia and Altinum, which had been rebuilt. They 
were the " cruellest of barbarians " and the most 
dangerous conquerors, for they came to seize the 
land and dwell in it. 

This time the people did not wait for their com- 
ing. Once more the storks rose from their nests, and 
good Bishop Paul looked up to the towers of the city 



THE PATHS ON THE WATER 29 

of Altinum and saw them going. First the birds flew 
round in circles, and there was a great chirping and 
chattering. Then all at once they picked up in their 
beaks those who could not fly, and flew away together 
to the southward. The good bishop had been in sore 
perplexity as to what he should advise the people, for 
he knew, as did every one, that the Lombards were 
coming, who destroyed cities as the flame licks up dry 
grass, and that all who stood in their way would be 
killed. Now he knew that the sign had been given 
him. He called the people together and told them 
that as the birds had gone away, so they too must 
seek safety in flight. The citizens divided into three 
parties, two of which sought shelter at neighboring 
cities ; but the third group, of which Bishop Paul was 
the leader, stayed behind, not knowing which way to 
go. Two days they waited, and on the third day a 
strong, clear voice was heard (so the story goes) saying, 
" Go up into the tower and look at the stars." 

The good bishop climbed the tower, and lo, the 
reflections of the stars made paths on the water to 
the islands beyond the lagoon. Then he went down 
and told the waiting people what he had seen, and 
they filled boats with such goods as they could carry, 
and the good bishop led them, and they came safely 
to the islands and landed and were saved. 



30 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

This time the people had fled from the mainland 
never to return. While the Lombards were rebuild- 
ing their cities, the fugitives were building a new and 
fairer city on the islands which had sheltered them in 
trouble. They brought blocks of marble and columns 
of precious stone from the churches on the mainland, 
and began to build fine palaces and churches and 
bridges, some of which are standing to this day. 

At first there had been no need of government. 
Each island brought its matters to the head of its 
noblest family to be settled, and each community 
lived for itself, the people from Aquileia paying little 
heed to those from Altinum. But the rule of the 
Lombards was rough on the mainland, and they 
constantly threatened evil to the island people ; and 
the sea was infested with pirates who made pillages 
from the water. No single settlement could defend 
itself from these dangers, and, moreover, there were 
frequent disputes between the islands over fishing 
and trade rights. So the people of the lagoon called 
an assembly to elect twelve officers, to be called trib- 
unes, one for each island, who should govern their 
affairs. 

This plan of tribunes worked for a while, but there 
was always quarreling between the different men and 
the different island towns, and meantime the enemies 



THE CHOICE OF A DOGE 31 

of Venice were growing stronger. The Lombard 
dukes made new efforts to rule the islands, and the 
Slavic pirates came down upon them more and more 
often. Then Christopher, patriarch of the largest 
island, called a general assembly, and pointed out 
to the people that these quarrels were endangering 
their life and safety as well as the independence for 
which they were so eager, since they were making 
them weak before outside foes. He proposed that 
the Venetians should choose one man as head of 
the state. The people knew that his words were 
v/ise, and chose for themselves a duke or doge. 
From that time on, for a thousand years, the affairs 
of Venice were managed by doges elected by the 
people. 

The ceremonies connected with these doges were 
very interesting. When a new one was to be chosen, 
the people came together and elected him by accla- 
mation, that is, by the shouts of the crowd when the 
name was spoken which met their approval. Then 
he was carried shoulder high to the church, which 
he entered barefoot in sign of humility. There he 
swore to govern according to the laws and to work 
for the good of the people. 

As time went on and the office of doge became 
more important, the doge was treated as a very grand 



THE DOGE 



33 



personage. When he went abroad on state business, 
a great umbrella was held over his head, waving 
banners were borne before him, trumpets blared to 
announce his coming, and an ivory chair of state was 
carried, in which he should sit, wearing his sword of 
office and holding a scepter. On such occasions he 
wore a silk mantle with a fringe of gold. This was 
fastened by a gold clasp over a tightly fitting tunic 
trimmed with ermine. Long red hose reached to his 
waist, and he wore a richly jeweled cap of the queer, 
peaked shape which you see in the picture, which 
came to be known as the doge's cap, for no one else 
could wear one like it. 

The people who chose the first doge did not know 
what an important office they were making, but one 
thing which they began was never changed. The 
doge was always elected by the people, which was a 
wonderful thing in those days of families of kings. 
He might take advantage of his power and become 
a tyrant, but the people could always depose him 
and choose a new doge in his place. 

The success of Venice in building its city on the 
water and managing its affairs came near being its 
undoing. So long as the sand flats sheltered only 
a band of fugitive fisher folk, no one cared what 



34 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

happened there. When a city of fine buildings, dwelt 
in by prosperous trading people who held with their 
fleet the control of the harbor, could be seen across 
the blue water, the rulers of Italy began to look across 
with covetous eyes. First the Lombard cities laid 
before the Roman general who governed Italy their 
claim to manage the affairs of Venice. 

'' These people who live over there on the water," 
they said, '' came from the cities where we now live. 
If they had stayed here, they would have been under 
our control. Just because a little water separates us 
from them, why should they presume to be an 
independent state .? " 

It was poor reasoning, and the Roman general 
knew it. 

"We," replied the Venetians, ''have made these 
islands habitable, and these canals navigable. They 
would have been worth nothing had we not labored 
over them. The creator has a right to his creation. 
The islands belong to those who made them, the 
waters to those who know how to defend them. We 
have a right to be free." 

Fifty years later the emperor of Constantinople 
sent a minister, Longinus, to look over his province 
of Italy. The western part of the Roman empire had 
fallen to pieces, but the emperor at Constantinople 



THE CLAIM OF THE VENETIANS 35 

still claimed authority in Italy. Now it happened 
that the Venetians, who were a great trading people, 
wanted to enter into friendly commercial relations 
with the eastern empire, but they did not wish to 
lose their right to govern themselves. They gave 
Longinus an imposing welcome. He was met, as he 
stepped from the boat which brought him from the 
mainland, by the sounds of bells and flutes, cytherns 
and other instruments. He saw what valuable allies 
the Venetians would be, and he urged them to 
declare themselves subjects of the eastern empire. 
They gave him the same answer that they had 
given the Roman general. 

'' We, made these islands ; we made this lagoon a 
great navigable harbor," — this they had told the 
Lombards. For Longinus they had still another 
argument : '' We withstood the barbarian invasions. 
No conqueror has ever stepped on these islands. 
God, who is our help and protection, has saved us in 
order that we may dwell on these watery marshes. 
This new Venice which we have raised on the 
lagoons is a mighty habitation for us. No power 
of emperor or prince can reach us save by the sea 
alone, and of them we have no fear." 

*' Truly, as I heard from others, so have I found 
ye," replied Longinus, — "a great people with a 



36 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Strong habitation. Dwelling in this security, you 
need fear no emperor nor prince." 

He saw at once that he could not make subjects 
of them, but he urged them to enter into a friendly 
treaty with the empire. 

'' We will enter into a trade treaty on one condi- 
tion," replied the Venetians, — '' that we have to take 
no oath of allegiance or submission." 

'' No oath shall be required of you," he replied. 

The Venetians furnished him a vessel and escorted 
him to Constantinople, and there was made out the 
treaty between the empire and Venice. The Vene- 
tians had gained their point. They were recognized 
for the first time as an independent state. 

Two hundred years passed, and the city on the 
lagoons had become fair and strong, when a new 
power appeared in Italy. Charlemagne crossed the 
Alps, destroyed the Lombard kingdom, and was 
crowned in Rome. The Venetians saw their power- 
ful neighbors on the mainland humbled, but the 
emperor did not have time to cross over to them. 
Their hour came in the days of his son Pepin, who 
in the division of the empire had become king of 
Italy. It did not please him to hear of this free 
state, which held itself so proudly on the edge of 



THE COMING OF PEPIN 37 

his kingdom, and he sent word to them that they 
were part of his realm, and ordered them to furnish 
troops and vessels to help him subdue his enemies. 

The Venetians saw that the crisis had come. Now 
the strength of their independence was to be put to 
the test. They sent to King Pepin a refusal, and 
prepared to defend themselves. By the advice of 
their doge they moved their wives and children, and 
such property as could be carried, to the little island 
of Rialto, which lay in the center of the lagoon and 
was inaccessible by land or sea. Then the fighting 
men established themselves at Albiola, and waited 
for the coming of the king. They had not long to 
wait. Pepin was very angry at their message. He 
had other business on hand, but his fleet and his 
army were in northern Italy and he thought it would 
be a little matter to go over and put these presuming 
rebels in their proper place. He reached Venice in 
January. This is the old record of his coming : 

'' Now when King Pepin came against the Vene- 
tians with an army and a fleet and much people, he 
encamped on the mainland over against the ferry to 
the Venetian islands. The Venetians, seeing King 
Pepin coming against them with intent to ship his 
cavalry over to the island nearest the mainland, 
blocked up his passage with a barricade of ships." 



38 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

That was the beginning. Pepin and his army 
stayed six months. They tried to get over to the 
islands by a bridge of pontoons which they built ; 
the Venetians stood on the nearest island and shot 
arrows and other missiles into their midst, and the 
bridge fell through with the great weight of soldiers 
which was put on it. They tried to attack by sea, 
and succeeded in taking all the outer islands, but as 
they made triumphant progress into the lagoon an 
unlooked-for difficulty met them. They went in as 
far as they could on a full tide, but their vessels were 
built for deep waters and they came to a place where 
the water was too shallow for them to proceed. Then 
the tide went out, and their vessels went aground 
on the shoals, and lay at the mercy of the Venetian 
archers. They built clumsy rafts of tubs and planks 
woven together with twisted branches of vines and 
olive trees. These could thread the shallow channels, 
but the Venetians enticed them on the sand bars. 

There the city lay, with its domes and its spires 
standing out clear against the sky ; but six miles of 
winding channels and treacherous shoals lay between 
Pepin and his desire. Summer came, and fever 
began to spread through his army. He made one 
last appeal to the Venetians. Standing on the main- 
land, with the Venetians waiting in their boats and 



THE REPUBLIC 



39 



on the beach of Albiola, he proclaimed in a loud 
voice his right to rule them. 

''Ye are my subjects," he cried, ''since ye come 
from my lands." 

" We did not come over here to have a ruler," 
replied the Venetians. 

Pepin had failed. The son of the mighty Charle- 
magne had to confess himself helpless before the 
island people. He withdrew with his army and died 
in that same year. The Venetians had made good 
their claim. They could preserve liberty among them- 
selves ; they could repel a foe. All through the 
Middle Ages this little free state lay between the 
empires of the east and of the west. For a thousand 
years, until the coming of Napoleon at the beginning 
of the nineteenth century, Venice remained an inde- 
pendent republic. 




CHARLEMAGNE AND WITTEKIND 

THERE was great excitement throughout Sax- 
ony. Messengers had gone through the land 
summoning the people to a grand assembly, such as 
was held only in times of special business or grave 
danger. None knew the reason for the summons, 
but all knew that the great Frankish king Charles, 
or Charlemagne, as men had begun already to call 
him, had led his armies to the borders of Saxony. 
The men who were making their way over the for- 
est paths to the place of meeting shook their heads 
gravely when his name was spoken. 

The assembly came together, and still no one knew 
what was the reason for its call, until the oldest chief 
of the Saxons arose and said : 'An ambassador has 
come from the Franks, and desires speech with the 
Saxon nation. If it be your will, he shall be called 
into your midst." 

'' Bring him into our presence," replied the chiefs, 
and a tall Frank, clad in the garb of a monk, was 
brought before them. 

'' I am a Christian bishop," he said, ''and I come 
to tell you of my God. Your gods which you worship 

40 



THE SAXON COUNCIL 41 

are no gods at all. They have no power, and it is 
wrong to worship them. Mine is the only true God. 
He is stronger than all others, and all who do not bow 
down before him are heathen. I call you to put aside 
your idols and give him honor and worship. Give up 
your religion and take mine. If you do not, I have 
something to tell you which has been revealed to me. 
A great and powerful king will come against you, 
whom God shall send to punish you. He will conquer 
your nation and wipe it out from the face of the earth. 
This will happen if you do not become Christians." 

It was a queer way to preach Christianity, was it 
not } To us, who think of Christianity as a power to 
be trusted for all good qualities, it seems impossible 
that men should ever have spoken in this way. But 
this was a dark period in the world's history, when 
men did everything by force, and even the church 
did not know any other way to spread its teachings 
than by the sword. 

The Frank was silent, and a murmur of indignation 
rose among the people, which soon grew into a cry 
of anger. 

'' What has he said to us ? That our gods are no 
gods at all ; that we must take his foreign god or his 
king will come upon us. It is an insult. Away with 
him, let him be put to death ! " 



42 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Thus spoke the younger chiefs, whose blood ran. 
hot in their veins ; but the old men held them back 
as they would have fallen upon the stranger and taken 
him away. 

'' He is our guest," they said. " He has come to 
us as ambassador from the mighty Charles. Let him 
depart with our answer ; let it not be said that an 
ambassador was murdered in the Saxon assembly." 

Their words prevailed, and the Prankish monk 
went back to Charlemagne. What did he report ? 
That the Saxons were a fierce and stubborn people, 
and that they refused to accept the God of the Chris- 
tians. Charlemagne was angry at the message, and 
he called together a great council both of the men of 
the church and of the fighting men of the kingdom. 
They agreed that they would fight the rebellious 
Saxons and force them to become Christians. 

'' These people must not remain heathen, worship- 
ing idols," declared Charlemagne. ''It would be a 
disgrace to the Prankish church if we let heathen 
carry on their practices unchecked on our very bor- 
ders. Saxony must be Christianized or wiped out." 

With a great army he crossed over into Saxony, 
and this is the way he began his work. There was 
in the western part of Saxony, near the Prankish 
border, a sacred grove, the grove of Eresburg, which 



THE SACRED GROVE 43 

was situated at the top of a hill. Here the Saxons 
came to worship. They believed that the world was 
shaped like a great tree : the rays of the sun were 
the branches, the earth was the trunk. On the 
branches and at the roots lived the gods, — the sun 
and moon and stars, the wind, the thunder, the water 
gods, and many more. So they worshiped this all- 
sustaining world tree, and made a wooden likeness 
of it. They had been a wandering people before 
they settled between the Rhine and the Elbe, but 
wherever they went they had always kept with them 
this pillar of wood, called the Irminsul, which was 
carved in the likeness of the earth tree. Now, when 
they lived over a wide stretch of country and were 
split up into many tribes, they had put the Irminsul 
in the sacred grove at Eresburg, and here they came 
together as a nation, at certain seasons of the year, to 
pay honor to the symbol of their common faith. 

Charlemagne had heard of this custom, and it 
seemed to him a terrible thing that these heathen 
should come together and worship an idol. 

"If I destroy this idol," he said to himself, ''I 
shall have done a service to God, and I shall have 
attacked at its source this terrible heathen belief." 

Prankish soldiers scaled the hill of Eresburg 
and stepped within the sacred circle where only 



44 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

the priests of the Saxons might stand. They found 
there a hoard of gold and silver and many orna- 
ments, deposited before the Irminsul as offerings by 
many generations of Saxons. These they distributed 
in the army. The sacred pillar they cut in pieces. 
In three days the work of destruction was finished, — 
the sacred grove had been cut down and a Prankish 
fort rose in its place. 

That was the way Charlemagne went over to 
Christianize Saxony and to add it as a province to 
his empire. Do you wonder that he did not find it 
easy ? Do you wonder that the Saxons rose up 
against this conqueror who had insulted their gods 
and threatened to take away their freedom, and that 
it was thirty-three years from the time of his first 
entrance into Saxony before he felt that the prov- 
ince was surely his ? That is a side of the matter 
which the Franks could not see, but which we can 
see very plainly. 

In the first two years Charlemagne thought that 
he had conquered Saxony, as he had conquered other 
lands, by a few battles and marches and a show of 
power. He had the chiefs come together and offer 
him allegiance. To the great king, accustomed to be 
obeyed, it seemed as if the story of independent 
Saxony was closed, and so perhaps it would have 



WITTEKIND 



45 



been if it had not been for one thing which the his- 
torian records in eight words, '' Wittekind, chief of 
the WestphaHans, was not there." Charlemagne did 
not know it ; he did not care. He went back to 
Italy, rejoicing that another great section of Europe 
had been added so easily to his empire. 

. But Wittekind, chief of the Westphalians, had not 
been there. He had not intended to be there ; he 
had urged the other chiefs not to be. In the breast 
of this Saxon chief burned a passion for indepen- 
dence which was like a torch shining out in these 
days of gloom and despondency and giving forth its 
light and heat till all Saxony caught fire and was 
aglow with the passion for freedom. 

'' The Franks think they have conquered us. The 
king has gone away and left his men to rule over us. 
He has burned down the sacred places of our religion. 
Shall we let any man, however strong, place us under 
the rule of foreigners and take away our gods, giving 
us a foreign god in their place ? " 

So spoke Wittekind ; and so men began to speak 
all through the land ; and the people rose, with him 
as their leader, and threw off the hated yoke of the 
Franks and tore down the forts which had been built. 
Then Charlemagne came back, and again he con- 
quered. Again he summoned the chiefs of the 



46 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

defeated people to come and give him their alle- 
giance, and again they dared not stay away ; but 
again '' Wittekind, chief of the Westphalians, was 
not there." When he saw that the people were 
yielding and that he could do his country no good 
by staying, he had crossed over to Denmark, to 
whose king he had given his sister in marriage, 
there to get help for the Saxons. This time Charle- 
magne wanted him ; he had learned that it mattered 
that he was not there ; but he could not get him. 

Charlemagne stayed longer this time. He had 
found out that these people could not be subdued 
by one victory. He gave them laws which they 
hated very much, — laws taxing them one tenth of 
their income and of their labor to build Christian 
churches, and decreeing that every one who did not 
submit to be baptized must be killed. Along with 
the hateful laws he showed them his power and 
riches. ''For the first time," says the chronicle, 
" the needy Saxons learned to know the abundance 
of wealthy Gaul, for Charles gave to them many 
lands, and costly vestments, heaps of silver, and 
rivers of mellow wine." 

Still the people were very angry at the laws and 
taxes, which seemed to them like tribute, the badge 
of slavery. When Charlemagne went away to Spain 



THE FRANKISH CONQUEST 47 

to fight the Saracens, they sent to Denmark for 
Wittekind, and once more they rebelled. This time, 
however, many chiefs would not join in the fight for 
Saxon independence, because they had seen that 
under Charles they could be rich and prosperous. 

For a short time Wittekind and his armies carried 
all before them. If his nation had stood by him, it 
would have gone hard with the Franks. They would 
have been forced to let the Saxons be an independent 
allied people. The people were with Wittekind ; 
the chiefs were not. So the Saxons were defeated, 
and Charlemagne ruled once more in the land. ''At 
last, with open roads and no man to gainsay him, he 
went where he would through Saxony." 

The province seemed at last to be his, but Charle- 
magne was not satisfied, for, as before, '' Wittekind, 
chief of the Westphalians, was not there." He was 
still at large, sheltered by the people, who were 
his devoted followers, in the wilderness beyond 
the Elbe. No man of the common people could 
have been bribed or tortured to give him up to the 
conqueror. 

Now we see the real Charlemagne, Charles the 
Great, the wise emperor whose story was told in 
''Barbarian and Noble," whose name has been 
honored for all the centuries. He did not send 



43 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

soldiers to take the patriot. His anger was passed, 
and he did not desire to put him to death. He sent 
envoys — not Prankish envoys, who would have 
been suspected of some plot, but men of Saxon 
blood — to treat with the chief and ask him to 
come to a conference, and he bade theni offer 
hostages as a pledge of good faith. 

Wittekind met the emperor's offer in the same 
spirit. As Charlemagne knew that with Wittekind 
on his side there would be no leader of Saxon inde- 
pendence, so Wittekind had learned to his sorrow 
that with the other chiefs of the Saxon nation sup- 
porting Charlemagne resistance would be useless. 
With only one companion, his friend Abbio, he 
came to the royal palace. There on Frankish soil, 
at the river which separated Saxony from the Frank- 
ish kingdom, he submitted to Christian baptism. 
The emperor himself stood sponsor for the Saxon 
convert, loading him with christening gifts. Witte- 
kind returned to Westphalia, where he lived to a 
good old age. Other chiefs, who had gone over to 
Charlemagne's side from love of wealth or desire 
for favor, deserted the emperor when they could 
no longer get these rewards. Amid all the later 
rebellions Wittekind remained faithful to his vow 
of allegiance. 




THE BAPTISM OF WITTEKIND 



49 



50 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Therefore when you honor Charlemagne, who 
built up a great united empire and spread civiliza- 
tion and Christianity over Europe, give honor also, 
as did he, to Wittekind, who was first his brave 
enemy and then his faithful subject. Charlemagne 
took away from the Saxons their laws and gave 
them better ; he took away their heathen religion 
and gave them a better ; he conquered them for the 
time, and it was well that he did ; but he could not 
harm them, for he could not take away the spirit of 
independence, whose great hero was the patriot 
Wittekind. 



THE CHOOSING OF A KING 

IT was a hundred years since the death of Charle- 
magne. His empire had been divided into three 
parts, which later became France, Germany, and 
Italy, and Germany was governed by a king chosen 
from the dukes of one or other of the six tribes. 
Conrad, the Frank, had been king, and now he was 
dying. When he felt that his end was near, he called 
to him his brother Eberhard and said : ''I feel, my 
brother, that I am to bear no longer the burden of 
this life ; God wills it so, and I must die. What is 
to become now of the kingdom rests principally with 
you. Therefore pay good heed and consider the 
advice of your brother. We have tried to rule as 
the great Charles ruled ; we have tried to keep up 
the glory of his line and of the Franks. We have 
many followers ; we have castles and weapons ; in 
our hands are the crown and scepter of the kingly 
office. But the people of Germany have never fol- 
lowed us ; their hearts are not with us. The power 
to lead Germany, if it can be led as one people, lies 
with the Saxons ; the love of the Germans rests on 
Henry, Duke of the Saxons. Take therefore, when 



52 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

I am gone, the symbols of royalty, the scepter, the 
gold armlets, the king's mantle of royal purple, the 
sword, and the crown of our ancient kings. Go with 
them to Henry and salute him as king." 

'' But he is our enemy," replied Eberhard in 
amazement. '' Have you forgotten this I Have you 
forgotten how lately you were at war with him ? " 

'' The future of Germany lies with Henry," replied 
the dying king. ''Go to him and make your peace 
with him, for truly he will be king and lord of many 
peoples." 

So spoke Conrad, and Eberhard promised to do 
as his brother had commanded, and the other nobles 
who were at the king's bedside promised likewise. 
Truly this last act of Conrad's was the grandest of 
his life, and was to be remembered to his honor for 
all generations, for, as you shall see, he forgave his 
enemy for the sake of the nation. 

Conrad died, deeply lamented by the Franks, and 
was buried in the cloister of Fulda, and the Prankish 
nobles, true to their promise, took the symbols of 
kingship and brought them to Saxony. But before 
I tell how they found Duke Henry, I must tell you 
how it had happened that King Conrad and Henry 
had quarreled and become enemies, so that Eberhard 
was right when he said that the king had but lately 



THE NECKLACE 53 

been at war with him. The quarrel came about 
through a queer accident. When Henry was a young 
man, but lately appointed Duke of the Saxons, Arch- 
bishop Hatto of Mainz sent to the young duke a 
present of a necklace, fashioned by his craftsmen in 
a new way which they had just learned. It was made 
of twisted gold formed in a coil to act as a spring, 
so that the wearer need not clasp nor unclasp it, but 
could stretch the chain of gold and pass it over his 
head, and it would close again around his neck. 
Henry was pleased when the gift was brought to him, 
and after he had handled it and admired its work- 
manship he put it on. But the craftsmen had never 
seen Henry, who was a fine, tall man with a strong 
neck and big shoulders, and they had made it too 
small. It shrank so tight as nearly to throttle him, 
and had to be cut off his neck. Henry was very 
angry, and the Saxons were more angry. They said 
that the bishop had wanted to strangle their young 
duke, and that the scheme had been planned by him 
and King Conrad, who was jealous of him and of 
the Saxon power. So they went to war at once, and 
Conrad had to defend himself and his archbishop, 
and that was the beginning of the difference between 
Conrad and Henry. Since then many things had 
happened to widen the breach, for Henry did not 



54 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

believe in the way that Conrad ruled. Henry thought 
that the people and the other dukes should have 
more chance to speak their minds than they were 
given by Conrad, who was a king after the old im- 
perial system of Charlemagne. 

Now Conrad's brother was on his way to Saxony, 
carrying to Henry at Conrad's command the insignia 
of royalty. 

There is in Saxony a beautiful region, with high 
mountains and swift-flowing streams, which is called 
the Harz. The mountain sides are covered with oak 
and beech forests, and streams of clear water from 
mountain springs flow down into green valleys. Here 
lived happily Henry, Duke of the Saxons, during the 
months when his duchy did not need him, and hither 
were sent the Frankish nobles when they came to 
Saxony asking for the duke. By a trail up the 
mountain side they made their way, and all at once 
the foremost of them heard a sound of a man whis- 
tling, which was answered by a chorus of bird notes. 
The nobles pressed on, and in a moment they were 
in the presence of their future king. Henry was 
seated in the shade of a great oak, whistling to his 
birds, who answered him with bell-like calls from the 
branches where they perched, or settled on his hands 
and shoulders. 




HENRY OFFERED THE CROWN 



55 



56 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

The duke rose at the sight of the strangers, and 
the birds flew away to the upper branches, from 
which they looked down on the strange scene which 
took place in this forest retreat. Eberhard came for- 
ward first, and as Henry rose to greet him with a 
word of welcome, he stretched forth to him the 
crown which he bore, and the others came forward 
with the other symbols of kingship, — the scepter 
and the gold armlets and the king's mantle of royal 
purple. 

'' King Conrad is dead, God rest his soul," said 
Eberhard solemnly, ''and by his wish and the wish 
of ourselves, the nobles of Franconia, we bring to 
you the symbols of royalty, and ask of you that 
you become King of the Germans." 

''I king! " said Henry. "You come to me with 
these ! But I was Conrad's enemy. He could never 
have desired you to come to me." 

'' By Conrad's wish we come," insisted Eberhard, 
and he told him of the king's words on his deathbed. 
Henry listened, and when Eberhard had finished 
speaking, he bowed his head. 

''Truly he was a good man," he said, "and if 
it be that the welfare of the German nation lies 
with me as king, I will obey his word, provided the 
people of all the tribes shall so decide." 



THE CHOOSING OF A KING 



57 



''It is well," replied the nobles, and they went 
away to summon the people to a great assembly at 
Fritzlar, which lies on the boundary between Fran- 
conia and Saxony. At Eberhard's call there came 
together all the nobles of the tribes on the four- 
teenth of April in the year 919, and Eberhard 
stepped out before the great company and said : 
'' Behold I here present to you Henry, proposed 
by King Conrad, and nominated by all the princes, 
for your king ! If this choice be acceptable to you, 
you will show it by raising your right hands toward 
heaven." 

All the people raised their right hands toward 
heaven, and shouted with one accord, '' King Henry ! " 
and they prepared to set him on the throne. The 
archbishop came forward and would have anointed 
him with oil, as had been the custom of many kings. 
Henry stopped him. 

'' That have I not deserved," he said. '' To me it 
is enough that I, through God's mercy and the love 
of you, my people, am called to be king. Let the 
anointing with oil be reserved for another. Of so 
great an honor I am not worthy." 

This he did partly through modesty and partly to 
show to the church that, though he meant to defend 
it powerfully in its true rights, he felt that the right 



58 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

to choose a king rested with the German people and 
with them alone. If the church had part in the coro- 
nation, and thought there could be no proper king 
without its having this part, it might sometime hap- 
pen that the church would say : " Germany cannot 
have this king that the people have chosen. We do 
not want him." Then the independence of Germany 
would be gone. 

Henry's words pleased the assembled company, 
and once more they raised the right hand to heaven 
and swore fidelity to the king and shouted in loud 
acclaim, '' Hail and blessing to King Henry ! " 

This was the true crowning of Henry, first king 
of the Germans ; but the people loved to remem- 
ber that he did not go out to seek his crown, but 
that it was first brought to him as he sat among 
his birds in the forest ; and in memory of that hour 
they called him, as every one has come to call him, 
'' Henry the Fowler," or, as the German speech 
puts it, '' Henry the Bird-Man." 



HENRY THE FOWLER 

HENRY was wise enough to see that putting 
the crown on his head did not make him 
truly king of all Germany. Conrad had worn that 
very crown, but half his people had been at war with 
'him, as had Henry himself. So he set about to make 
peace among all German dukes, and this was no 
easy matter, for each of them had wanted to be king 
himself, each save Eberhard. With him and the 
people of Franconia he was already at peace, and 
with Burkhardt of Swabia he was soon able to make 
terms. But Duke Arnulf of Bavaria had no intention 
of making peace. He had intended to seize the king- 
ship when Conrad died ; he intended to seize it now, 
and he had a strong army to enforce his claim. He 
had established himself in the newly fortified town 
of Regensburg, and there he waited for Henry to 
come and make war on him. Henry came, bringing 
an army to use if need be ; but it was his plan to seek 
first to bring Bavaria into the kingdom with other 
weapons than the sword. 

The king sent a message to Duke Arnulf appoint- 
ing a conference, and Arnulf, thinking that a duel 

59 



6o PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

was to decide the question between them, did not 
shrink back, though Henry's fame as a swordsman 
had not been forgotten from his boyhood days, but 
appeared at the appointed place and hour armed from 
head to foot. The two armies were encamped on 
either side of the meeting place, awaiting the result 
of the interview. 

But lo ! when Arnulf in his coat of mail, with 
breastplate and knee guards and helmet, strode into 
the presence of King Henry, he found the latter 
unarmed and in homely house garb. He received 
the astonished duke with these words : '' Since God 
has given to me the crown, you owe to me, your liege 
lord, obedience, even as I also would acknowledge 
you as overlord, had the choice fallen on you ! " 

Duke Arnulf stared in amazement. No one had 
ever dared to tell him that he owed obedience to any 
man. But the quiet voice went on : '' The honor of 
the kingdom, the welfare of the fatherland, our 
peoples who long for peace and freedom, demand 
sacrifice from you and us all. If we will succeed in 
this purpose, we must act in unity ; but if this is to 
come to pass, the smaller states must yield in some 
matters to the greater." 

With a winning smile and a cordial word, the king 
dismissed him. The interview was over before Arnulf 



A PATRIOT DUKE 6 1 

quite knew what had happened, and the duke was 
making his way back to his own followers to report 
to them the message, and to gather them in a council 
to ask their advice. The king's words had not been 
in vain. 

"I do not want to yield," said Arnulf to his 
nobles, '' but if I must yield, truly this is a man to 
whom one could willingly give one's support." 

The nobles advised the duke to give to the king his 
allegiance, provided he was not forced to surrender 
any of his private rights over his duchy, and Arnulf 
followed their advice. He bore to the king the reply 
of Bavaria, and took for his duchy the oath of alle- 
giance. From that day he held faithfully to the oath 
and kept himself an obedient vassal in such matters 
as pertained to the whole of Germany, becoming be- 
sides King Henry's most valued friend and adviser. 

Within five years Henry accomplished, though 
not without some fighting, the great task of uniting 
Germany, — the work attempted, but without success, 
by Hermann and Wittekind in their time. His work 
had, however, only just begun. Germany was suffer- 
ing at that time from invasions by the Magyars and 
Hungarians on the east and from the Danes and 
Norsemen on the north. This was the second period 



62 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

of the Wandering of the Peoples, when RoUo and his 
Vikings came down on France. With his northern 
and western neighbors Henry did not have much 
trouble. His northern tribes were strong enough 
with his help to beat off the Danes, and Charles the 
Simple of France met the German king on a boat on 
the river Rhine, which separated France and Ger- 
many, and concluded with him a peace by which the 
boundaries of each land were established. So Ger- 
many was fairly secure on the north and west, but 
on the east and south a new tormentor had arisen. 
Bands of Hungarian horsemen would sweep through 
the land, burning towns and villages, stealing the 
crops, and killing men, women, and children as they 
came in their way. Arnulf had fought against them, 
but in vain. If matters went on there would soon be 
no Germany over which Henry could be king ; each 
province would be subject to the Magyars and 
Hungarians. 

King Henry had seen all this. That was why he 
had been so eager to form a strong, united Germany. 
Now fortune favored him. A Magyar leader fell, 
during one of these marauding expeditions, into the 
hands of the Germans, who delivered their prisoner 
to the king. The Magyars must therefore come to 
Henry to get him back. 



THE NINE YEARS' TRUCE 63 

" If you will conclude with us a nine years' truce, 
in which there shall be no fighting on either side, I 
will let your leader go free," said King Henry. 

The Magyar messengers were surprised, the Ger- 
man dukes hardly less so. 

'' But what of the tribute money that the duchies 
on the south have been paying for the sake of 
peace ? " demanded the Magyars. 

'' For nine years that money shall be paid, so long 
as you keep the peace," replied the king. 

The Magyars wanted their leader very much, and 
finally agreed to these terms, and so did the dukes, 
though they murmured among themselves at the 
long truce. 

When the Magyars were gone. King Henry 
explained his plan. 

'' We are not now strong enough to defeat the 
Magyars," he said. ''If we went to war with them 
the result would be uncertain. They fight on horse- 
back, we on foot. That gives to them, a great advan- 
tage. They can sweep down upon us and destroy 
our crops and cause a famine in the land, and they 
can destroy even our homes, for they are not well 
protected. For nine years we shall have peace from 
their invasions, and during that time we can prepare 
ourselves so that we will be strong at their coming." 



64 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

King Henry went at once about his work of 
strengthening the kingdom. He knew that the time 
was none too long. First he set the people to build 
about their settlements high, strong walls, with tow- 
ers at each corner and gates from which sentinels 
could look out on the whole surrounding country 
and give warning of the approach of the enemy. 
Within these walls were constructed moats, deep 
paved ditches, twenty, thirty, and forty feet wide. 
Into these water might be run, and across them 
could be swung drawbridges, which could be let 
down or pulled up at will. They made a second 
barrier against the enemy. Within these moats was 
still another wall with iron gates. These were the 
first walled cities of Germany, and by the build- 
ing of them Henry gained the noble name of '' The 
Founder of Cities," for he was doing his people a 
greater service than he knew. He built the cities 
for defense against the Magyars, but they were to 
serve as a defense against many foes, and they 
were also to gather the people closer together and 
strengthen the bonds of national life. Some of the 
walled cities are standing there to this day just 
as they were built in the Middle Ages, and you 
will find, when you go to visit them, that in cities 
where no wall or tower remains there are often 



KING AND QUEEN 



65 



broad circular boulevards encircling the city, built 
where the moats used to be. 

One city in particular is associated with King 
Henry, for here he loved most to dwell. It v^^as in 




the dear Harzland, whence the people had sum- 
moned him to be king, and was called Quedlinburg. 
Hither he brought in these years his wife Matilda, 
who was a descendant of the patriot Wittekind, and 
here they dwelt together happily in the midst of 
their people. The Germans loved Queen Matilda 
(the good queen, as they called her) almost as much 



66 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

as they did King Henry, and quaint stories have 
come down to us of her beauty and her goodness. 
The people of Quedlinburg were always glad when 
she spent the winter at home, for she never stayed in 
a town in winter without causing fires to be lighted in 
every house, however poor, and even on the streets. 
She had a special public bath built in Quedlinburg 
for the poor, and she never drove abroad without 
scattering bread to beggars. 

King Henry ordered likewise that one ninth of 
the people should be chosen by lot to dwell within 
the cities and defend them, and that the people who 
lived on the farms outside should agree to send a 
certain amount of their produce to the city dwellers. 
Thus they should not lack for food, though they 
did not till the land themselves, and they would be 
ready to take in the country people and support 
them in case of siege. 

The king had spoken to the dukes about the 
Magyar horsemen. Charlemagne had taught the 
Franks to fight on horseback to defend themselves 
against the Saracens, but the Saxons had never 
fought save on foot. In all the duchies there were 
younger brothers of noble family, who did not in- 
herit the estates from their fathers. They were too 
proud to till the land or work at a trade, and they 



THE LAWS OF KNIGHTHOOD 67 

would not serve in the army as foot soldiers. Some 
of them had taken to the mountains and lived a 
reckless life, robbing merchants as they passed with 
their goods from town to town. These men were a 
menace to the nation. King Henry offered to them 
all free pardon if they would come and serve in the 
cavalry which he was organizing, and learn to fight 
on horseback. They came in great numbers, and as 
Henry did not want men of wild life in his army, 
the story is that he talked over with the dukes what 
should be the requirements of this knighthood which 
he was forming. '"'A knight," he began, ''if he is 
to be a true servant of the crown, must not by word 
or deed harm the church." 

'' No," added Count Conrad, '' nor his fatherland." 

'' Nor," said Berthold of Bavaria, '' must he be a 
liar." 

'' Nor have injured a woman," said Hermann of 
Swabia. 

'' No, nor run away in battle," added Conrad. 

So those were the laws of knighthood, and some 
say that chivalry began in that hour when it was 
agreed by Henry and his dukes that a knight must be 
true to his church and his country, honorable, gentle 
to women, and brave. Of later laws and customs of 
chivalry you will read more in 'Xavalier and Courtier." 



68 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

When the nine years were over, King Henry 
gathered the people. His preparations were fin- 
ished ; his army had fought with northern enemies 
and showed that it was well drilled and ready. Of 
all this he spoke to them : '' Our kingdom is at peace 
within itself ; all our enemies are conquered. Only 
the Hungarians stand over against us, demanding 
tribute as the price of peace. Nine years I have paid 
it ; nine years I have had to give up what belonged 
to your children to enrich these enemies. We have 
robbed ourselves. We have given until there is 
nothing left to us but our bodies and our weapons, 
unless we rob the churches. We are here to decide 
what we shall do. Already the messengers are on 
the way. Shall we pay tribute longer } Shall we 
impoverish ourselves to give what they demand .? 
Choose ye this day what ye will do." 

Then there rose a shout from the whole people, 
speaking as one, '' No ! let us free ourselves from 
these bonds." They raised their right hands to 
heaven and vowed to stand by the king against the 
enemy, and as they shouted they beat their thousand 
swords upon their shields. 

The Magyar messengers came to the borders of 
Germany. Instead of the ambassadors bearing gold 
there met them a group of warlike Germans leading 



THE FOUNDING OF GERMANY 69 

a dog, a cur, with cropped tail and ears. Him they sent 
into the Magyar camp, which was by ancient custom 
the greatest insult one people could offer another. . 

The Magyars rose to take revenge. They came 
down upon Germany in greater numbers than ever 
before. But their horsemen were met by trained 
German horsemen. They could no longer kill and 
destroy where they would. The people were within 
the walled towns, which the Magyars could not take. 
Henry's plans were realized. After many battles the 
Magyars were driven back and Germany was safe. 

For the last years of his life Henry could rule a 
peaceful and united Germany which he had deliv- 
ered from warfare within and without. When he 
died, and was laid to rest in the abbey of Quedlinburg, 
the whole nation mourned him. 

That was the way the German nation was founded. 




HEREWARD THE SAXON 

HE REWARD was a Saxon patriot, and above 
all things the Saxons loved a hero. When 
the barons and their ladies were seated at banquet 
in the great castle halls, it was their wont to call for 
a minstrel and bid him sing to them a hero song. 
When the common people came together at the 
village green on festival or market days, there a 
minstrel would be found, and the people would flock 
to him and ask him for a song. 

'' Of whom shall I sing .? " the minstrel would ask. 

''Of whom but Hereward, our Saxon hero.?" 
would be the answer. 

Then the minstrel would sing of Hereward and 
his exploits, — first of his life in the fastnesses of Ely 
and of his fight with William the Conqueror, which 
is all written down in sober form in the pages of his- 
tory ; and then, when the people clamored for more, 
of his boyhood, and of how he came to be an out- 
law, and of the fair ladies who loved him and whom 
he loved. Sometimes, when it came to be one hun- 
dred years or more since he lived, they would forget, 
and tell stories of him which belonged to some one 

70 



HEREWARD'S BOYHOOD 71 

else. So to-day when we search the old writings to. 
learn about Hereward, we find some history and 
some of these songs which were written down just 
as the minstrels sang them ; and this story, as I am 
going to tell it to you, is made up from all these ac- 
counts, — mostly from history, of the brave Saxon 
patriot whom all Anglo-Saxons honor, but sometimes 
from old English songs, of the wonderful hero who 
was the darling of the English people in the twelfth 
and thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

The minstrels tell us most about his boyhood. 
They say that he was the son of Leofric, Lord of 
Bourne, and of the Lady Godiva. He was graceful 
of form and handsome of face, with beautiful flaxen- 
colored hair and large, blue-gray eyes. He was large 
of frame and might have been clumsy, had he not 
been so agile and graceful in his movements. Even 
in his youth he showed himself remarkably strong 
and powerful of limb. Though he was gentle to the 
weak, with his fellows he was rough in play and bold 
in planning perilous adventures, so that he was the 
leader of them all. 

Being of noble family, Hereward received in his 
boyhood training as a page and an esquire. He was 
taught to wrestle, to tilt with the spear, to run, to 
shoot with bow and arrow, and to vault a horse when 



72 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

clad in heavy armor. Sometime during Hereward's 
boyhood Earl Leofric was called to court, and thither 
he took his family. Here Hereward did not get on 
so well. Edward the Confessor was king at that 
time. He had spent twenty-seven years across the 
Channel in France at the Norman court, and had 
brought back with him Norman lords and Norman 
pages and esquires and more foreign ways than were 
pleasing to the men of England. He was, besides, a 
scholar and cared nothing for manly sports and exer- 
cises of arms. Young Hereward was always getting 
into trouble with the Norman boys or inventing some 
adventure which brought all the esquires into dis- 
grace. They were only boyish pranks, but they tried 
King Edward and Earl Leofric, who was the same 
kind of man, beyond measure. The worst story we 
hear of Hereward is that when he was wrestling 
with a French page on the roof of one of the low 
Saxon houses, the French boy angered him and he 
let him roll off, upon which the page went with a 
doleful tale to the king. The king and Earl Leofric 
took counsel together and decided to banish Here- 
ward from the court, or, as they put it, ' ' to send him 
to travel in foreign countries for an indefinite period." 
So Hereward left England when he was nineteen 
years old. After his father had expelled him from his 



THE NORMAN CONQUEST 73 

presence, he went for advice to his godfather, Gilbert 
of Ghent, and Earl Gilbert gave him letters to his 
friends in Ireland and Flanders. Of these years of 
his banishment the minstrels loved to tell wonderful 
tales, like those about Jack the Giant Killer, — how 
he went forth and meeting a giant in the way, slew 
him ; how he killed a magic wild boar which attacked 
him ; and many more legendary adventures. 

History comes in to tell us of what happened in 
England during those years. The Normans, descend- 
ants of Rollo and his Vikings, had become a very 
great and powerful people dwelling in the north of 
France ; in many ways they had come into relations 
with the Anglo-Saxons across the Channel, so that 
people were constantly going back and forth, and 
the men of one court, as you have seen with King 
Edward, lived first in one place and then in the other. 
The common people did not like it, but they could 
not help it. England was not strong enough in those 
days to make a separate nation that could defend 
itself against all other nations. King Edward died 
and Harold came to the English throne, and he too 
had had close relations with the Normans, so that 
William, their king, even said that Harold had sworn 
to him, while he was yet a duke over in Normandy, 
that if he became king of England William might 



74 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

come over and share his realm. However that was, 
WilHam of Normandy looked with longing eyes upon 
the counties of England, and meant to add them to 
his domain. Harold stood out firmly when he came 
to be really king, and said that whatever promise 
William had got out of him when he was his 
subject did not hold now that he was the king of 
England, for the English crown belonged to the 
people and was not his to give. But William was 
not to be daunted. If he could not have England 
peacefully, he would take it by war. So he gathered 
an army of sixty thousand men and set sail for 
England. That was the last time a whole nation 
moved its home, the very last scene in the long 
Wandering of the Peoples of which you have read in 
'' Barbarian and Noble." William came over, as you 
know, in the year 1066, and conquered the Saxons 
in the Battle of Hastings and was crowned in London. 
All this time Here ward was over in Flanders. 
He heard of the coming of William the Conqueror 
to his land, and he heard too of the way the Normans 
were oppressing his people, taking their homes and 
fields and turning them out as if they were beggars. 
Then word came to him that his father was dead and 
his own home had been taken by a Norman chief, 
who was living in it and had driven out his mother 



HEREWARD'S RETURN 



75 



Godiva, its lawful owner. Hereward waited no 
longer. Banished though he was, outlaw even, as 
some called him, he would return to his own land 
and his own people. But if he was outlaw from the 
court of the peace-loving Edward, how much more 
would he be in danger from the conqueror William ! 

Hereward went straight to his own county and 
gathered a band of his former friends and playmates, 
who welcomed him joyfully. The Normans were 
feasting in Hereward's hall, listening, so the min- 
strels say, to a false song of Saxon cowardice, and 
laughing at the Saxon ways, when Hereward and 
his men came upon them, and drove them out of 
the hall and out of the county, — that is, so many 
as escaped with their lives. 

After that exploit there was no safety in England 
for Hereward. He stayed at his home only long 
enough to restore his mother to her rightful heritage, 
and retired to the marshes of Ely ; and it is with his 
fight for liberty at Ely that history is most concerned. 
If, when you have read this tale, you want to know 
more of Hereward and of English life in the eleventh 
century, you must read Kingsley's book, '' Hereward 
the Wake." 

The Fenland in the east of England, of which 
the island of Ely is the center, is the most barren 



76 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

part of England. Here there is a great tract of 
country, none of it a hundred feet above sea level, 
dotted by an occasional island a little higher than the 
rest, and cut by narrow channels of sluggish water 
which divide the great swampy marshes. To this 
wild waste of land and water Hereward and his band 
retired, and on the island of Ely established a Camp 
of Refuge, to which flocked all the brave Saxons of 
England who had been driven from their homes 
by the Normans. Men slipped away even from 
William's court in his absence, to make plans with 
the outlaws, and were back in their places before 
the king returned. From this shelter Hereward and 
his men '' harried the Normans of nine counties," 
attacking their castles after a march of thirty or forty 
miles through the night, and returning before day- 
light to their fastnesses. 

Meanwhile William was trying to govern England, 
with uprisings going on in the north and west and 
this nest of outlaws to the east. '' This William 
was a very wise and great man," writes the Saxon 
chronicler, '' but also was he a very stern and wrath- 
ful man, so that none durst do anything against his 
will. Amongst other things the good order that he 
established is not to be forgotten. But truly there 
was much trouble in his times, and very great distress. 




n 



y8 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

The rich complained and the poor ipurmured, but he 
was so sturdy that he recked not of the hatred of 
them all ; they must will all that the king willed, if 
they would live, or keep their lands, or be maintained 
in their rights." 

Even while he was bringing order to their land, 
the Saxons hated their Norman king beyond all 
words, as all freedom-loving men must hate a foreign 
conqueror. More and more Saxon earls and lords 
slipped away to Hereward's Camp of Refuge, until 
there were gathered four thousand of the most 
daring spirits in England. William had heard of 
Hereward's attacks on the country round about. He 
had even come to have a grim sort of respect for 
this brave fighter who so easily overtook his Norman 
barons. When one of his own abbots had proved 
warlike and rebellious, he had said, '' I '11 find him 
his match ! He shall go to Peterborough, where 
Hereward will give him enough fighting." 

Now when William heard that Hereward and his 
men planned to winter together in Ely, he prepared 
to attack them. He moved his court to Cambridge, 
which was the nearest town ; he sent his ships and 
sailors round by water to fight from the sea ; and he 
brought with him all his army to besiege these Saxon 
rebels. By one means and another he tried to take 



HEREWARD AS POTTER 



79 



them, but in vain. He attempted to starve them out, 
but Here ward had laid in a good store of wheat and 
grain, there were always fish and wild fowl to be 
caught, and, watch as the Normans would, the fisher- 
men and country folk, who stood to a man with the 
patriots, would manage to take sheep and cattle at 
night by secret ways through the marshes to the be- 
sieged outlaws. He built approaches, and Hereward 
destroyed them. He planned surprises, and men 
from Here ward's supporters would get wind of them 
through servants of the king. 

The minstrels tell how Hereward himself went 
over in disguise to the king's court. One time he 
went as a fisherman to sell fish, and another time he 
was dressed as a potter and walked into the camp 
crying, '' Pots ! pots ! good pots and pitchers ! 
Earthenware dishes, all of the very best!" This 
time he was in real danger, for he was brought by the 
cook, who wished to buy dishes, into the kitchen, 
and then, for his pleasing appearance and wit, taken 
up among the soldiers and courtiers. If it had not 
been for his swift mare Swallow, he would never have 
escaped that day, for among the soldiers was one who 
recognized him and gave the alarm. 

King William sat in the Castle of Cambridge and 
looked out across the wastes of marsh to the camp 



8o PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

of Ely and pondered how he should take Hereward 
and his men. At last he had a great causeway, two 
miles long, of stones and trees and earth, laid across 
the marshes, so that his army could march safely to 
the attack. He blocked up every outiet from the 
marshes to the sea with boats. So he shut in 
Hereward and his men, and still they did not yield, 
until a traitor from the monks of the abbey of Ely 
came and told the king of a secret way through 
the marshes, by which his men might safely reach the 
island. That made it possible for him to surprise the 
Saxons and take many of them ; but even then he 
did not get Hereward. 

A fisherman hid Hereward in his boat, which had 
been kept in waiting in case he should be obliged to 
make his escape, and there he lay under the straw 
until a party of Normans came to buy fish. As their 
leader, a Norman knight, bartered with the Saxon 
about the price of his fish, Hereward leaped from his 
place of hiding and, seizing the horse from which 
the Norman had dismounted, rode away to safety. 

With his followers Hereward retired to the forests 
joi his own estate, and there, in the midst of the 
forest, they lived for many a month. Berries and 
acorns grew there which were fit for food, and red 
deer and wild cattle and pigs ran in herds. With 



HEREWARD IN THE GREENWOOD 8 1 

his bow a man might Uve there without lack, and in 
the depths of that wild forest he might evade a foe 
forever. Moving from one place to another each 
week, they dwelt in the forest in safety, and that was 
the beginning of the greenwood life of England, 
in which Robin Hood and Adam Bell and many 
another persecuted and friendless outlaw escaped, 
to live happily in the forest. 

Hereward was not to end his days in the green- 
wood. He and his men were so fortunate as to cap- 
ture a Norman knight, Duke Ivo, and thus 'the 
chance came to him to make peace with William, 
who had by this time made himself so strong in the 
land that it was useless to resist him. King William 
showed himself an honorable foe. He offered to 
restore Hereward 's land and castle, and to let him 
dwell in peace on the estates of his fathers, if he 
would promise never to take up arms against him 
again. Hereward was true to his promise, and that 
was the way it happened all over England. The 
Normans saw that they could not make the Saxons a 
subject people, and the Saxons saw that the Normans 
had come to stay. So the two races came together, 
as English and Danes had come together in the days 
of King Alfred, and as the Saxons themselves had 
joined with the former inhabitants of the land when 



82 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

they sailed across from their Saxon homes in Ger- 
many five hundred years before. While they loved 
the story of Hereward, 

" Who year by year did fight so well 
The rhymers all his praises tell," 

the Saxons learned also the wonderful stories of the 
Normans, and took up the civilization of Europe 
which the Normans brought, until now 

" Scot and Celt and Norman and Dane, 
With the Northman's sinew and heart and brain, 
And the Northman's courage for blessing or bane, 
Are England's heroes too." 




FREDERICK BARBAROSSA AND 
THE LOMBARD CITIES 

THIS story brings us back to Italy. The Lombards 
were the last barbarians, you remember, to come 
over the Alps into Italy, and they took the beautiful 
northern cities, while the people fled across the water 
to the islands of Venice. Then they lived in these 
cities, rebuilding them, and governing all northern 
Italy, and trying to get Venice into their power. 
Those same cities were taken by Charlemagne and 
the Franks when they came over into Italy, but the 
Lombards were not driven out. They stayed, but 
they had to acknowledge Charlemagne as their em- 
peror and lord. After Charlemagne died, all Europe 
was in confusion for a time, and when there began 
to be emperors again, they were German emperors. 
Otto, the son of Henry the Fowler, was the first to 
call himself emperor, and he was crowned at Rome 
just as Charlemagne had been, and from that time 
on German emperors claimed to be kings of Italy as 
well as of their own native kingdom of Germany. 

Sometimes the German emperors were too hard 
pressed keeping the peace in their own kingdom to 

83 



84 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

pay much attention to Italy, and in those reigns the 
Lombard cities, which were the strongest cities in the 
whole land, got in the way of managing themselves 
and their neighbors as though there were no emperor 
at all. That was the way it was in the reign of Con- 
rad, the uncle of the Frederick of our story, Frederick 
Barbarossa, or Frederick Red-beard, as he was called 
in history. 

Frederick was not that kind of ruler. In the story 
of Charlemagne and Wittekind you saw that one 
man might seem to his own people a very wise ruler, 
but to the people whom for some reason he was try- 
ing to bring into his realm he might appear at the 
very same time a tyrant ; which shows you that what 
we said in the beginning was true, — that tyrants are 
not always bad men. Sometimes they are very good 
men, but for some mistaken reason they are trying 
to take away the rights of other people, and so the 
people resist them. That was what happened with 
Frederick. He was a brave king and a wise ruler 
and a chivalrous knight, and all the world holds him 
in honor, as you will when you have read about him 
in ''Cavalier and Courtier"; but just now we are 
going to see how, through trying to keep his empire 
in order, he found himself for a little while taking 
away liberty from the Lombard cities. 



THE LACK OF PROVISIONS 85 

The first story that came to Frederick's court about 
the kingdom of Italy was that the big Lombard city 
of Milan was oppressing her smaller neighbors. 

'' I must go down and look after this kingdom of 
mine," said Frederick to himself, and with a great 
army he marched over the Brenner Pass and pro- 
ceeded to the place where he had announced that he 
would meet his subjects, the vassals of the kingdom 
and the deputies of the cities. On the way a strange 
accident happened which began the trouble. It was 
the duty of every city to furnish to the emperor, 
whenever he might appear in its neighborhood, sup- 
plies for him and his companions, and guides to the 
places where he wished to go. The route by which 
Frederick chose to journey had lately been made 
barren by war, and the supplies which the city of 
Milan was trying to furnish fell short. It was only 
an accident. The Milanese had done their best to 
get together food for the army, but P^rederick, re- 
membering what he had heard of how Milan was 
oppressing her neighbors, thought it was an inten- 
tional slight, and on his way southward stopped to 
destroy two of her castles and to put Milan under 
the ban of the empire. When the Milanese came to 
beg for peace, he told them that they might have 
peace if they would give to him complete submission, 



86 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

so that he might govern their city as he pleased, ap- 
pointing their officers. He had heard many stories 
of the way Milan was using her power over her 
neighbors, and he thought it best to make an 
example of the city. The Milanese refused, and 
Frederick declared them rebels. 

He did not make war on them this time, but 
he came back two years later, and besieged the city 
and took it. This is the way the conquered people 
showed their submission. The whole population of 
the city formed a procession. First came the arch- 
bishops and clergy, bearing sacred vessels ; then the 
nobles, barefoot and dressed in tattered garments, 
with their swords slung behind their backs, to show 
that they were using them no more ; and last the com- 
mon people, with ropes around their necks, to show 
that they were no longer free people. The long pro- 
cession marched four miles from the city gates to 
the plain where Frederick was sitting crowned and 
in royal robes, waiting to receive their submission, 
and to take from their hands the keys of the city. 

In the peace which was concluded that day, the 
Milanese thought that they were to have their city 
rights left to them. They were to appoint their own 
officers, subject to Emperor Frederick's approving 
them. What Frederick really understood we do not 




FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 



87 



88 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

know. At any rate he sent men promptly to depose 
the officers chosen by the people and to put in his 
men, who were not Italians but Germans. When 
these foreigners began to govern the city, the 
Milanese rose up in rebellion, and before many 
weeks Frederick was called back to make war on 
them. 

Again the greater force conquered. Frederick had 
called in the Italian neighbors of Milan, rival Lom- 
bard cities which were jealous of her power, and they 
had helped him. Once more, after many months of 
siege and starvation, the whole population marched 
out from the gates with ashes on their heads and 
ropes round their necks to prostrate themselves 
before their conqueror. 

Frederick was more just than many kings of his 
time. He did not put his conquered people to death 
nor imprison them, but he decreed that the whole 
population should leave the city forever. They were 
to set themselves up in huts which they should build 
in four villages on the plains, and the men of the 
rival towns were to be called in to tear down the city. 
In six days not one stone remained upon another in 
what had been the fair-walled city of Milan. 

Then Frederick went away to Germany, where 
his people needed him, and left German officers to 



THE REBUILDING OF MILAN 89 

govern the Lombards. They took no pains to make 
the yoke Hght. They oppressed the poor with taxes ; 
they gave the people no share in the government ; 
and Hfe became intolerable to the freedom-loving 
Lombards. Their common suffering drew together 
the rival cities, which had never before been at peace. 
In the winter of 1167 a league was formed, which 
was the beginning of the famous Lombard League. 
The cities which came together in this league agreed 
that the first thing for them to do was to rebuild 
Milan and restore her citizens to their homes. On 
an April day the dw^ellers in the huts, which were 
all the homes that remained to the Milanese, looked 
out across the plain and saw horsemen coming with 
banners as if in battle array. 

'' What army is this," they said, '' and what further 
evil is to befall us ? " 

When the troops came nearer to the poor villages 
the Milanese found that these were not enemies but 
friends, allies who had been their rivals until a 
common oppression by a foreigner had brought them 
together. 

The Milanese joined the joyful procession and 
went with them to their ruined city. All set to work 
to restore first the moat and the city walls, for defense, 
and then the houses. The work went on with great 



90 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS . 

enthusiasm. Women gave their jewels to adorn the 
restored churches, and in a short space of time Milan 
stood once more the central city of the Lombards. 

It was seven years before Frederick was able to 
get the kingdom of Germany into order so that he 
was free enough from the enemies that beset his 
northern kingdom to come over and chastise these 
rebellious cities of his in Italy. During those years 
the Lombard League grew stronger, till at last thirty- 
six towns belonged to it. 

Then Frederick came over with great armies, 
marching straight to Milan, where the allies gathered 
to meet him. In one of their wars for liberty a 
patriot of Milan had invented a military device which 
should serve as an inspiration to the army. This 
was a strong wagon built of iron, supporting an 
iron pole from the top of which floated the banner 
of the city, and was called the Carroccio. It was 
draped in scarlet cloth and drawn by eight white 
oxen selected for their size and beauty. The Car- 
roccio was to be the center of the army. Around it 
were to be stationed the bravest warriors. To abandon 
it to the enemy was the extreme of disgrace. The 
Milanese had had to do this once. When Frederick 
destroyed the city, he ordered that the Carroccio be 
brought, and he himself tore away the fringe and 



THE PEACE OF CONSTANCE 91 

scarlet cloth amid the lamentations of the people. 
Now it had been prepared again for his coming, and 
three hundred of the noblest youth of Milan had 
formed a company around it, swearing to die before 
they allowed the sacred emblem of the city to fall 
again into the hands of the conqueror. 

The battle of Legnano was fought between the 
Germans and the Lombard League, and the Lom- 
bards were victorious. After the battle it was even 
thought for a time that Emperor Frederick had been 
killed, for he could not be found. The empress put 
on garments of mourning ; but after a few days he 
reappeared from the mountains, to which he had been 
driven by his peril after the defeat. He had come 
to realize that the Lombard cities were not to be 
subdued by force of arms. A great Congress was 
held at Venice, at which a si^r years' truce was made 
between the emperor and his vassals ; and by the 
Peace of Constance, agreed upon when the truce ex- 
pired, Frederick solemnly granted to the Lombard 
cities the three things which they wanted and which 
were to them the symbols of liberty : 

1 . Liberty to make peace or war as an independ- 
ent city with their neighbors. 

2. Freedom from outside interference in the 
private government of the city. 



92 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

3. Freedom from taxation to which they should 
not agree. 

Having obtained these their cherished rights, the 
Lombard cities agreed to give to Emperor Frederick 
their allegiance, and to be in every other respect his 
vassals. 

The Peace of Constance is a great liberty document, 
and the most beautiful part of the story remains to 
be told. There was never a peace more honorable to 
both sides, nor more honorably kept. Within a few 
years the Emperor Frederick came once again to 
visit Lombardy. He came as a loyal observer of the 
treaty to visit the free cities of his realm ; he was 
received with loyal allegiance and cordial welcome 
by every city of Lombardy, even by Milan, which 
had been torn down and built again because of his 
coming. " I love to reward rather than to punish," 
was the word of the great emperor. 



KING JOHN AND THE BARONS 

KING John of England was a tyrant, and a 
wicked man besides, — one of the worst kings 
that England ever had. He tried to steal the king- 
ship from his brother Richard the Lion-hearted 
while Richard was away at the Crusades, and he 
even offered the emperor of Germany money to 
keep Richard in prison, that he might still be king. 
When he became king, he had the child Arthur, his 
only heir, killed, that none might take the throne 
from him, and for this he was put out of the 
church by the pope ; and all through these years 
he tyrannized over his people in every way. 

Archbishop Stephen Langton had stood out 
against him in the earlier years of his reign, and 
when things became very bad in England, he pri- 
vately called some of the nobles together after a 
church assembly. When the nobles and barons were 
gathered, Stephen Langton told them that he had 
found a most precious thing, the charter of liberty 
which the good King Henry, the son of William the 
Conqueror, had given to the people. It was only a 
sheet of parchment, but it was a written statement 

93 



94 



PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



by the king of the rights and Hberties of the people 
under him, and it meant that these rights should be 
observed by one king after another. 

''With the help of this," said the archbishop, 
''we should be able to get back our rights." 

Then all who were assembled in the church, com- 
mencing with those of highest rank, swore on the 
great altar that if the king refused to grant these 
liberties and laws, they themselves would withdraw 
from their allegiance to him, and make war on him, 
till he should, by a charter under his own seal, con- 
firm to them everything they required. Finally it 
was agreed by all that after Christmas they should 
go together to the king and demand the confirma- 
tion of these liberties, and that they should in the 
meantime provide themselves with horses and arms 
" so that if the king should endeavor to depart from 
his oath, they might, by taking his castles, compel 
him to satisfy their demands ; and having arranged 
this, each man returned home." 

Only a very wicked king could have made the 
nobles take this stand, for they were ready to abide 
in all things by the will of a just ruler. But in those 
days no man's property nor life nor honor was safe. 
The whole nation was made poor by the demands 
of the king for money, and by his commands that 



THE DEMANDS OF THE BARONS 95 

men leave their homes and their work to come and 
serve as soldiers in his wars. 

This then is the story as it is told in the chron- 
icles of England. At Christmas, in the year 121 5, 
the nobles came to King John in gay military array 
and made of him their demand. He, hearing the 
bold tone of the barons in making their demand, 
much feared an attack from them, as he saw that 
they were prepared for battle. He therefore asked 
time for deliberation, and a truce was fixed till the 
end of Easter. 

Again in Easter week of this same year the nobles 
assembled with horses and arms, for they had now 
induced almost all the nobility of the kingdom to 
join them, and constituted a very large army. The 
king was awaiting the arrival of his nobles in 
Oxford. He sent messengers to inquire what the 
laws and liberties were which they demanded. The 
barons then delivered to the messengers a paper 
containing the laws and ancient customs of the 
kingdom, which they desired to have renewed and 
established. The archbishop with his fellow mes- 
sengers took this paper back to the king, and read 
to him the heads of the paper, one by one, till he 
had heard it throughout. But the king, when he 
heard the purport of these heads, derisively said. 



96 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

with a great show of indignation, ''Why among 
these demands did not the barons ask for my 
kingdom also ? " And with many angry words he 
declared with an oath that never so long as he was 
king would he grant them liberties which would 
take away from him the right to do as he pleased, 
and make him their slave. 

The barons, when they received the scornful mes- 
sage of the king, began to make war. They took the 
king's castles and the king's towns, and marched 
nearer and nearer to London. As they were drawing 
near they received a secret message from the nobles 
of London, which was the head city -of the king- 
dom, saying that if they wished to get into that city, 
they should come there immediately. They marched 
the whole night and arrived early in the morning at 
London, where they found the gates set wide open. 

King John, when he saw that he was deserted by 
almost all his nobles, yielded, telling the barons that 
for the sake of peace he would willingly grant the 
laws and liberties which they required. He also sent 
them word to appoint a fitting day and place to meet 
and carry all these matters into effect ; and they, with 
great joy, appointed the fifteenth day of June for the 
king to meet them at a meadow called Runnymede, 
near the royal castle of Windsor. 



THE MAGNA CHARTA 97 

There they met on that June day, and in the field 
of Runnymede, the king and the barons of England 
signed the parchment of the Magna Charta, the 
Great Charter, which may be seen to-day, torn and 
yellowed and shriveled with age, in the British Mu- 
seum in London, — the most precious piece of paper 
in all England, for with it began English liberty. It 
was a long paper, and many parts of it applied only 
to that time, but there were two things which we 
must notice as the beginnings of English law, on 
which all our modern rule of government is built : 
No man might be arrested and thrown into prison 
without being tried before his peers, that is, before 
men of his own class, — his equals. In that provision 
we have personal liberty. And second, the king 
could not raise any great amount of money by tax- 
ing the people without the consent of the common 
council of the kingdom. Do you remember how the 
Teutons — Hermann and his Germans, and Witte- 
kind and his Saxons — had always rebelled against 
taxation by the Romans or the Franks ? They were 
right ; and yet there must be taxes (money paid into 
the common treasury by the people) if there was to 
be any government at all. The difficulty was settled 
by the English on the field of Runnymede. The 
people must consent to be taxed, or, as our fathers 



98 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

put it in the days of the American Revolution, there 
must be no taxation without representation. That 
was poUtical Hberty. 

No one of those present at this assembly supposed 
that King John liked to sign this Magna Charta ; 
but when he did it quietly and without any outward 
sign of opposition, they '' hoped he was inclined 
henceforth to all gentleness and peace. But far 
otherwise was it. Some of the people said grunt- 
ingly and with much laughter and derision, * Behold ! 
this is the twenty-fifth king of England ; and lo ! 
he is not now a king any longer.' " 

That was not true, for he was only deprived of the 
power to be a tyrant king, but it was just the way 
John felt, and right in the midst of the company he 
fell into a rage, and '' commenced gnashing his 
teeth, scowling with his eyes, and, seizing sticks and 
limbs of trees, began to gnaw them and break them 
in pieces to vent his rage." Truly he was almost 
beside himself with anger, this tyrant king who had 
been forced in spite of himself to give to his people 
a Great Charter of Liberty. 



SIMON OF MONTFORT 

IT was a king's greed for money which gave the 
Enghsh people their next help to a free govern- 
ment, though the king never suspected it and the 
people themselves hardly realized it. When you read 
this story, however, see if you do not think so. 

The king was Henry III, John's son, and it all 
began with his fondness for foreigners. The English 
were weary of foreigners. Every century or two, from 
the landing of Julius Caesar to the coming of William 
the Conqueror, a new people had crossed the waters 
that separated them from Europe, and had invaded 
and settled in their island, trying to manage those who 
were already living there. England had become a 
wonderful nation by the coming together of all these 
strong Teutonic peoples, but now it had had enough. 
The English people wanted to be left to govern and 
develop their island in their own way. But their new 
king was of just the opposite mind. He began by 
marrying a princess of Provence ; he brought over 
Frenchmen to live at his court, offering them as a 
reward not only high positions in the government 
but also marriageable English ladies of great wealth 

99 




AN EARLY ENGLISH PARLIAMENT 



THE SILVER SAUCEPANS loi 

as wives ; last of all he married his sister Isabella 
to the Emperor of Germany. This was what got 
him into trouble, for Henry was so eager to make 
this fine match that he agreed to give his sister a 
dowry second to none in the world. All the old 
records are full of descriptions of the wonderful 
outfit with which Isabella started for Germany. 
'' She shone forth with the greatest profusion of 
rings and gold necklaces and other splendid jewels, 
surpassing even kingly wealth. The bed which she 
took with her was beautiful beyond words, and last, 
what seemed superfluous to every one, all the cook- 
ing pots and saucepans, large and small, were of 
pure silver." This, you will remember, was in the 
thirteenth century, when the table dishes of most 
castles were only of pewter, and the common people 
ate out of wooden bowls. 

Isabella went off to Germany with her silver sauce- 
pans and her jewels, and Henry began to wonder 
what he should do next. He held his court that year 
at Christmas in Winchester, and from there he sent 
out through all the borders of England royal writs 
directing all the barons and lords who had regard 
for the realm of England to come without fail to 
London for the purpose of royal business and matters 
touching the whole realm. The appeal sounded 



I02 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

serious, and lords and barons obeyed the royal com- 
mand at once, believing that they were to consider 
high matters of state. When they had taken their 
seats in the royal palace, they found that the king 
had spent all his money on his sister's dowry and 
his own wedding, and wanted more. This was the 
way the clerk of the king said it. 

'' Now, therefore, our lord the king, being wholly 
without money, without which any king is indeed 
desolate, humbly begs an aid from you." 

He went on to say that the '' aid " which the king 
requested was to be '' one thirtieth of all the movables 
of England," which meant one thirtieth of every- 
thing which the lords and barons owned except their 
land and their castles, which were not '' movable." 
The nobles, not expecting anything of this kind, 
murmured greatly, and answered angrily that they 
were constantly oppressed on every side. 

''It would be unworthy of us," they said, ''and 
injurious to us, to allow a king who is so easily led 
astray to extort so much money so often, and by 
so many arguments, from his natural subjects, as 
if they were slaves of the lowest condition.". 

The king excused himself by saying that he had 
spent so much money on his own and his sister's 
marriage. 



HENRY'S APPEALS FOR MONEY 



103 



Then they reminded him of the provisions of the 
Magna Charta, which he had confirmed when he 
came to the throne but which he seemed to have 
forgotten. 

"All this was done without the advice of your 
subjects," they said, ''and those who are free from 
the blame ought not to be sharers in the penalty." 

The Magna Charta had said that the people must 
consent to a tax. These men went farther and said, 
Whoever imposes a tax must tell the people what 
it is wanted for." 

The council voted the king his money, for there 
was nothing else to do now that he had spent all 
that he had, but they made him promise that this 
should not happen again. 

Five years later it was all to be done over. The 
king had broken all his promises. He had spent the 
money. Now he wanted more, and at the royal com- 
mand the nobility of all England, prelates and earls 
and barons, assembled once more. Do you begin to 
see what this king's greed for money was doing ? 
If the king had not wanted money, he would not 
have taken much notice of his nobles. Here we have, 
for the first time in history, an English king call- 
ing together a Parliament every few years and being 
forced, because he wanted their money, to listen while 



I04 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

they told him what they thought of the way he was 
managing the kingdom. 

This time the nobles were weary of the way their 
king was behaving. They complained to him that 
the money had all been used for foreigners and 
foreign wars and had contributed nothing to the ad- 
vancement of king or kingdom, and they reproached 
him bitterly for thus scattering English money among 
foreigners, telling him that he should be ashamed to 
ask them for more. They gave him the right to 
impose a small tax, but before they separated they 
bound themselves by a solemn oath that they would 
give the king no more money. 

'' So the parliament dissolved," reads the record, 
'' leaving fixed, but secret, anger in the hearts of 
either side." 

Matters grew worse and worse in England. The 
king, as soon as he got his money, paid no attention 
to the warnings of the Parliament. There was a bad 
harvest one year, and the poor were without food. 
The Welsh rebelled against the king, and he did 
not have money enough in the treasury to pay for 
supplies for the army, and once again he was forced 
to call together his barons, who had been watching 
for another five years while the kingdom went from 
bad to worse. 



EARL SIMON OF MONTFORT 105 

At this Parliament of 1258, a great thing hap- 
pened to the barons. Earl Simon of Montfort went 
over to their side. He was a foreigner by birth, a 
Norman, but he was at heart a better Englishman 
than their English king. He had married the king's 
sister, and had been at one time in high favor with 
Henry, who had given him provinces to govern in 
France. But when he went over to govern his prov- 
inces he had found that the king had no intention 
of backing him with money or help. He had given 
him the province. Earl Simon must manage it as 
best he could and try besides to extract from it money 
for the king. Not only had Henry treated him badly 
in many personal ways, but Earl Simon, when he 
returned to live in England, had seen the sad state 
of the land, and his sympathies were all with the 
protesting barons. 

So in this Parliament he made a great speech of 
protest against the king's methods, and called on the 
barons to take measures for the protection of the land 
from this king, who, as the chronicler puts it, ''with 
open mouth was thus greedily gaping after money." 

Henry did his best to win over his nobles, but 
they had become too strong. On the altar of the 
church he finally swore that he would correct his 
errors ; but the nobles had learned the value of the 



I06 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

king's promises. To obtain the money he needed, 
the king had to agree to adjourn the Parliament for 
one month, when it should meet again and should 
appoint a commission of twenty-four of its members, 
twelve to be chosen by the king and twelve by the 
barons, to draw up a plan of reform for the kingdom. 
This Parliament was to meet at Oxford. In the 
month between the two meetings the barons made 
many preparations. They suspected that the king 
would hire foreign troops to help him put down the 
'' rebels " as he called them. So they garrisoned the 
five great harbors opposite to the French coast. 
They also sent word to their homes that all who 
owed them knightly service might accompany them 
to this gathering. Thus they had a strong force of 
men to defend them, should the king plan to attack 
them with his troops. 

The king dared do nothing. The Parliament met. 
It appointed councils whom the king should consult, 
and the king promised to make no move without 
them. It planned many reforms, and last of all it 
decreed that the king's castles which were held by 
foreigners should be given up by them. The for- 
eigners protested, but in vain. The barons were firm, 
and the foreigners, seeing that the day when they 
could live in ease and idleness on English money 



THE KING AND EARL SIMON 107 

was gone, fled from the country. Before it separated, 
the Parhament voted that henceforth it should meet 
not only at the call of the king, but regularly three 
times a year. That was the beginning of our modern 
system of regular governing assemblies of the people. 

In all these councils Earl Simon was the leader. 
How the king hated and feared him is shown by a 
story of an accidental meeting between the two, one 
month after the Parliament had closed. 

The king one day had left his palace at Westmin- 
ster and gone down the Thames in a boat to take 
his dinner out of doors, when the sky clouded over 
and a thunderstorm came on, with lightning and 
heavy rain. Now the king feared a storm of this 
kind more than anything, so he directed them to 
land him at once. The boat happened to be oppo- 
site to the stately palace of the bishop of Durham, 
where Earl Simon was staying. On hearing of the 
king's arrival the earl went gladly to meet him and, 
greeting him with proper respect, said by way of 
reassurance, ''What is it that you fear.? The storm 
is now passed." 

To this the king, not in jest but seriously, an- 
swered with a severe look, '' The thunder and light- 
ning I fear beyond measure, but thee I fear more 
than all the thunder and lightning in the world." 



Io8 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

The king did not keep his promises. This is not 
to be wondered at. He was too much used to ruUng 
in his own way to submit to the council of the barons. 
England was once more oppressed, and the common 
people began to sing a song of which this was the 

first verse, 

" Earl Simon, now, of Montfort, 
Thou powerful man and brave, 
Bring up thy strong battalions, 
Thy country now to save." 

"In the year 1261," reads the chronicle, ''the 
king was turned aside from the compact which he 
had made with the barons. He retired to the Tower 
of London, and strengthened it. He broke open the 
treasure that was stored there, and he also com- 
manded that the city be guarded with bolts and bars. 
The heralds of the king went out and proclaimed 
that those who would fight for the king should 
come forward and be supported at his expense. . . . 
When the barons heard this, they assembled from 
all quarters with great hosts of soldiers outside the 
city walls." 

That was the beginning of the struggle. The 
barons, with Simon of Montfort leading them, sent 
word to the king in a last message, that if he would 
have pity on the land ^nd grant them good laws, 




THE BARONS PLEDGING THEIR FAITH 



109 



no PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

they would serve him well with foot and hand. The 
king replied that he cared nothing for their service. 

''We care not for your protection nor love," the 
message read, ''but defy you as being enemies of 
us and of our people." 

Thus the king returned to the earls and lords the 
oath of fealty which they had sworn to him, declaring 
that he considered them enemies. 

Both sides prepared for battle, and at Lewes the 
king and his troops met the forces of the barons, 
and were defeated, the king being taken prisoner. 

Earl Simon marched to London to take up the 
government, and the hopes of men were high for 
England's freedom. 

" Now does fair England breathe again, hoping for Hberty, 
And may the grace of God above give her prosperity ! " 

So reads one of the songs of the people in that day. 
Earl Simon summoned a Parliament, and for one 
thing about that Parliament he will be remembered 
with honor forever. He announced that there should 
be summoned to the Parliament not only the nobility 
of the realm, earls and barons and lords, but also 
" four discreet knights from each county," and " two 
discreet, loyal, and honest men " from each city. 
Thus he established the principle that every class 



EARL SIMON'S WORK in 

of people should be represented in the government, 
which is the principle of every Congress and Parlia- 
ment and Assembly to-day. 

The barons did not keep supremacy in England. 
King Henry's son, Prince Edward, escaped from 
their custody and raised an army, which defeated 
the barons within a year, and by the battle of Eve- 
sham restored his father to the throne. In this bat- 
tle Earl Simon of Montfort was killed, but the song 
was true which said, 

" But by his death earl Simon hath 
In sooth the victory won," 

for a very wonderful thing happened. When King 
Henry died and the crown of England passed to his 
son, Edward did not go back to the old way of 
governing, but took up Earl Simon's way and sum- 
moned just such Parliaments of the people as Earl 
Simon had gathered. So the prince who had de- 
feated him carried on Earl Simon's work, and all 
Anglo-Saxon people give honor to this day to 

" Simon of the mountain strong, 
Flower of knightly chivalry. 
Thou who death and deadly wrong 
Barest, making England free." 



THE MEN OF THE FOREST 
CANTONS 

DURING the later centuries of the Middle Ages 
the different peoples of Europe began to draw 
apart from each other and to form separate nations. 
We have seen how England drove out its foreign 
lords and began to rule itself, and how Henry the 
Fowler founded the separate German nation. The 
same spirit was working in every region during 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the pa- 
triots of those years have a special interest because 
they were founding the nations of the modern world. 
The next people to make a stand for liberty were the 
Swiss, and this tale is of their leaders, the men of the 
forest cantons, and of their hero, William Tell. 

Switzerland was divided into cantons as England 
was divided into counties, and the forest cantons 
were Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden. They were beau- 
tiful mountain regions, covered with forests, which 
sloped down to the blue lake of Lucerne lying in 
their midst. Here dwelt a simple mountain people, 
shepherds whose log huts perched in the high Alpine 
meadows, and artisans and farmers who lived in the 



THE FREE TOWNS 



113 



tiny villages that dotted the valleys or lay on the 
harbors of the lake. No part of Switzerland is more 
shut away by mountain ranges from the outer world. 
The men who dwelt in the forest cantons in the 
Middle Ages heard of what was going on in the courts 
of emperors and kings, but so far as their daily life 
was concerned, it affected them little. After the fall 
of the Roman Empire, Switzerland was first under 
Clovis ; then it was part of Charlemagne's empire ; 
and after his death it fell, in the partition, to the Ger- 
man section. To each ruler the Swiss gave allegiance, 
recognizing his overlordship ; but the private affairs 
of the cantons, which affected the life of the people, 
were managed either by seigniors and barons, who 
lived in castles and claimed control over the regions 
which surrounded them, or by town officers whose ap- 
pointment was approved by the emperor. So there 
came to be '' free towns," which paid their annual dues 
to the emperor, but which directed their own affairs 
through general assemblies meeting once or twice a 
year in the open air, at which any person who owned 
''seven feet of land before or behind him" might 
claim a voice. Such were the towns of the forest 
cantons. In this remote region, shut in by mountains, 
the people kept more of their ancient liberties than 
in any other part of Switzerland. 



114 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

This was the state of affairs when the crown of the 
empire passed to the house of Hapsburg. Emperor 
Rudolph of Hapsburg was, as you will read in '' Kings 
and Common Folk," a great emperor. He ruled justly 
and fairly, and the Swiss who were his fellow coun- 
trymen honored him ; but he did not like the idea of 
free towns in his empire, and he refused to give a 
charter renewing and confirming the ancient rights 
of Uri, Schwiz, and Unterwalden. Because his offi- 
cers were fair and just, the people of the forest cantons 
did not suffer in his reign, but when he died and the 
government passed to Albert, Duke of Austria, it was 
far otherwise. Not only did he refuse to grant the 
ancient liberties, but he put Austrian officers in place 
of their town seigniors. These men governed in a 
most tyrannous fashion. They threw people into 
prison without giving them any trial. They robbed 
the poor of their crops and their cattle under the name 
of taxes. In short, they knew no law but their own 
desires, and their ways were cruel beyond imagination. 

Then the men of the forest cantons met and joined 
themselves in a '' perpetual alliance " for aiding one 
another in resisting oppression. That is what history 
tells of the beginning of the oldest free state in the 
world. But, as in the case of Hereward the Saxon, 
legend has a great deal more to tell, and this is one 



THE THREE PATRIOTS . 115 

of the times when legend is as well worth reading 
as history, for even if everything did not happen in 
just this fashion, the story gives us a true picture of 
Swiss patriotism, and has come to be one of the most 
famous stories of liberty in the world. 

The men of the cantons resented bitterly the 
tyranny of the Austrian officers, and whispered 
among themselves that such deeds could not be 
borne. But they had no leader. They did not know 
that, while they were sleeping in their beds, three 
patriots were meeting nightly to plan for freedom. 

It was not safe to meet by day nor in any house, 
for the Austrian's spies were everywhere. So three 
patriots, Stauffacher of Schwiz, Melchthal of Unter- 
walden, and Walter Fiirst of Uri, who had suffered 
much from the governors and whose hearts burned 
over the oppression of the people, determined to come 
together by night and advise with one another con- 
cerning what could be done. They chose for their 
meeting place the meadow of Riitli, a steep promon- 
tory jutting out over Lake Lucerne, which lay mid- 
way between the three cantons. Here they met, and 
as they discovered from one another what tyrannies 
were being practiced in each canton, they said : '' The 
time for submitting is past. The forest cantons must 
be free again." So they struck hands on it, and each 



Il6 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

agreed to bring ten men of like sentiments with 
himself to the place of meeting. 

They came together, thirty-three of the truest men 
of the three cantons, on the night of the seventeenth 
of November ( this was in the year 1 307) and talked 
together long hours in the darkness, and before they 
separated they took an oath which is known as the 
oath of Riitli. They raised their right hands to heaven 
and swore in the name of God, before whom kings 
and peasants had equal rights, that they would work 
together for the liberties of the cantons ; that they 
would stand for the innocent and oppressed people 
of the land ; that they would go about rousing the 
people to a remembrance of their ancient rights ; 
that they would do no harm to seigniors or governors 
save as it was needful for their lawful liberties ; but 
that the freedom which they had received from their 
ancestors, that same freedom they would hand down 
to their children. As they spoke the oath, so the 
story goes, the first rays of the rising sun shone over 
the mountains on the brave group of patriots. 

The men of Riitli dispersed, to find new tyrannies 
awaiting them. Gessler, officer of Uri, had taken it 
into his head to humble the people in a new way. 
He had a pole set up near the linden tree of Altdorf, 
where every one must pass, and upon it he caused 



WILLIAM TELL II7 

a hat to be placed. Then he had it proclaimed that 
every one who should pass before the hat should take 
off his hat and bow and show respect, as though the 
king were there. At the foot of the pole he set a 
servant to watch and see that every one obeyed him. 
He who did not, should have cause to repent it, he 
announced. 

'' What nonsense is this ? " said the people, " Does 
he make mock of our misery, trying to show us that 
we are slaves, to bow down to a hat } " 

Now the day after this hat was set up, one of the 
men of Riitli, William Tell, came to Altdorf and 
passed the hat upon the pole without doing reverence. 
This was reported to Gessler. He therefore had Tell 
brought before him and asked him why he did not 
bow before the hat. When his answer did not satisfy, 
the tyrant bethought him how he could best punish 
him and give the people a lesson at the same time. 
Now Tell was a renowned archer ; there was hardly a 
better one. And he had with him his son, a child of six. 

'' Now, Tell," said Gessler, " I understand that 
thou art a good shot. Thou shalt prove thy skill 
before me. Thou shalt shoot an apple from the 
head of this thy son." 

Tell protested in vain, begging him for God's sake 
not to require him to do this. 



Il8 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

'' I would rather die," he said. 

" Thou and thy child shall both die if thou wilt 
not obey," replied Gessler. 

So Tell was led out into the village square. His 
son was placed before a tree, and an apple was laid 
on the child's head. All the people looked on in 
pity and fear, and murmured against the tyrant for 
this cruel plan. 

Tell prayed fervently to God to protect him and 
his loved boy. Then he took his crossbow, drew it, 
and placed the arrow upon it, put another into his 
jerkin, and shot at the apple. And behold ! the apple 
was cleft clean in two, the arrow lodged in the tree 
behind, and the child stood forth unhurt. Truly that 
was a wonderful shot. 

Then Gessler praised him for the shot, but asked 
him why he had another arrow in his jerkin. 

'' It is the hunter's custom," replied Tell. 

'' Come, Tell, give me the truth. The answer thou 
hast given I will not accept. Fear not, thy life shall 
be safe." 

''Well, then," said Tell, "since you have made 
my life safe, I will tell you the truth. Had I hurt 
the boy, with the other arrow I should have shot 
you, and I should not have missed you." 

Gessler was furious when he heard this. 




^^^v♦^7Jn«'A'(^^'^^■yA^^^ 



119 



I20 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

'' So be it," he said. '' I have made thy hfe safe ; 
my word shall hold ; but I will have thee taken to a 
place where thou shalt lie without seeing sun or moon 
forevermore," 

He ordered his men to bind Tell and take him 
to a boat, which should carry him to - prison, and he 
himself went with them. Tell's shooting tackle, 
quiver and arrow and bow, he took along and placed 
on board near the tiller. When they came upon the 
lake a terrible storm arose, and all were in danger 
of being drowned. Gessler's servants said to him : 
'' Sir, you see us and our danger. Our pilot is full 
of fear and unskilled. Now Tell is a powerful man 
and skillful with a boat. We should make use of 
him in this distress." 

So Tell was loosed and stood at the rudder and 
sailed along. But he looked often at his bow and 
arrow. When he came near to a level place, he cried 
to the boatmen to pull well until they were in front 
of that flat place, where they would be out of danger. 
Then he pushed the tiller with much power (he was 
a man of great strength), grasped his bow, and leaped 
on shore, pushing the boat back as he did so. Thus 
Tell escaped from the tyrant Gessler. 

When you go to Switzerland, you will see on the 
shore of Lake Lucerne a little chapel built at the 



THE SWISS REPUBLIC 12 1 

spot where tradition says he leaped ashore, and 
you will be shown the meadow of Riitli, where 
the patriots met. In the little town of Altdorf you 
will find the statue of which the picture is shown 
here. The rest of the story of Swiss freedom you 
will read in the pages of history, which tells how 
the three cantons rose in revolt against their op- 
pressors, how the Swiss fought at Morgarten and 
threw off the hated yoke of Austria, and how they 
met on the shores of Lake Lucerne in the year 
131 5 and renewed the perpetual league of freedom 
which was the beginning of the Swiss republic, the 
oldest free state in the world. 




ROBERT BRUCE 



" Ah ! Freedom is a noble thing 



Freedom makes man to have Hking ; 
Freedom all solace to man gives ; 
He lives at ease that freely lives. 
A noble heart may have none ease, 
Nor aught besides that may him please, 
If Freedom faileth." 

WITH these words John Barbour, the old Scotch 
chronicler, begins his life of Robert Bruce, 
hero of the cause of freedom. In quaint verse he tells 
stories of the patriot's adventures for the sake of free- 
dom, and it is because of these stories that Robert 
Bruce's name has lived and will live through the ages. 
His memory is not cherished for the battles which he 
fought, though he was a brave and skillful general, 
nor even for the political cause to which he gave his 
life, for he fought to keep Scotland separate from 
England, and the centuries have proved that it is for 
the good of both nations to be united. His memory 
is cherished because of these old stories, which show 
that to the minds of his countrymen the spirit of 
liberty and of patriotism was made perfect in Robert 



THE CROWNING OF ROBERT BRUCE 123 

Bruce. Therefore we need not concern ourselves 
with all the history of England and Scotland at this 
time, although some day you must read the whole 
thrilling story in the works of Sir Walter Scott, but 
we can find out what we care to know about the 
patriot Robert Bruce by reading his story as it is 
told in the quaint old Scotch books. 

By the death of the rightful heir the Scottish throne 
became vacant at about the time when the Swiss, 
far away in the center of Europe, were making their 
struggle for freedom, and Edward I of England tried 
to seize it. He even took the ancient Coronation 
Stone of Scotland and carried it off to England. 
But the Scottish people wanted independence and a 
king of their own, and a little group of them met in 
all haste and crowned Robert Bruce, who was the 
next claimant. King Robert of Scotland. It was a 
hasty ceremony, performed in the year 1306. The 
ancient crown was gone, but a slight circlet of gold 
was used in its place. The Coronation Stone was 
gone, and the robes of office, but robes were pro- 
vided, and a patriotic churchman came forward with 
the banner of Scotland, which he had kept hidden 
these many years. Duncan Macduff, whose right it 
was as Earl of Fife to put the crown on the king's 
head, was over in England serving the English king. 



124 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

but his patriotic sister came riding across Scotland in 
all haste to put the crown on Robert's head. She 
was a bit late, and every one was very much surprised 
to see her, but it was a great joy to them all to have 
her lay the circlet on Robert's head, for it carried on 
the old custom. When the coronation ceremony was 
over, Sir James Douglas came forward and cast down 
some earth that he had brought from his own estates, 
in token that he gave his possessions as well as his 
body to the service of the new king, and others did 
the same, till there was a tiny mound of earth in 
front of King Robert. 

There were a great many Scottish estates that were 
not represented in this little mound of earth, and 
King Robert must go about at once to strengthen his 
cause and try, by persuasion or by force, to win over 
more men to his side. For a time he met with many 
misfortunes. An English army was sent over the 
border to take him, and many Scots sided with them. 
All his expeditions and attempts met with misfortune, 
his friends were captured by the English, and the 
autumn of 1 306 found the king of the Scots and his 
companions outlaws and fugitives in the mountains. 
Life in the barren Highlands was full of hardship, 
even if one were not in fear of his life, but when one 
was pursued from every side and must move hither 



BRUCE IN EXILE 1 25 

and thither at every new alarm, it took on added trials. 
Yet Bnice's wife and several faithful ladies followed 
their lords into the hills, and there they lived through 
the autumn months. For food they ate roots and 
herbs and such venison as the men could get by 
hunting. By day they wandered through the moor, 
and at night they lay down on the bare ground and 
in the heather ; and all this hardship they endured 
cheerily and bravely, for, as the old writer says, '' it 
was not the Crown only, but their Liberty also that 
they suffered for ; and not their own Liberty alone, 
but the Freedom of their Country and all Patriots." 

But winter was coming on. The nights were too 
cold for them to sleep safely on the bare ground. Their 
clothes were tattered and torn ; they had no shoes 
but such as they had made of deerskin. Besides, 
the English had heard of King Robert's hiding place, 
and he was no longer safe. The ladies could not en- 
dure the hardships that were before their husbands, 
and so they went sadly back to the towns, and Bruce 
and his followers turned toward the Western Isles. 

On their way westward they came to Loch Lomond 
and wished to go across ; but from the hills they could 
see no boats, till at last Sir James Douglas, hunting 
along the banks, found an old sunken boat. They 
pulled it out of the water and tried to stop up the 



126 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

leaks, and got it so that it would carry them with 
some safety. But it would only take three men at a 
time, and there were two hundred. To row them all 
across took a night and half a day, and all through 
those hours of waiting in the cold Bruce sat on the 
shore and told the men stories from an old French 
romance which he had read. 

" The good king in this manner 
Comforted them that were him near. 
And made them games and solace 
Till that all his folk were passed." 

This, then, is our first picture of the patriot king, 
out on the lonely moors, an outlaw, hunted almost 
to death, in tattered rags, cheering his followers by 
his story-telling and never losing heart. 

They came over Loch Lomond to a richer country 
than that which they had left, and the men went out 
to kill deer for food. Then word came to the Earl 
of Lennox, the lord of that manor, as he was riding 
abroad, that there were poachers on his estate, and 
he went to find them, and behold ! it was his king. 
Then was the earl glad and welcomed him and his 
men joyfully and took them to his castle and gave 
them such food and shelter as he might, and they 
made merry. But it was not safe for Bruce to remain 
there. Vessels were got for him, and he and his men 



BRUCE IN DANGER 127 

went over to the isle of Rachrin, which lies off the 
coast of Ireland, and there they spent the winter. 

It was a long, weary time. Often the hearts of the 
men failed them, but their king cheered them and 
spoke to them often of the sorrows of their land 
under the tyrant, and told them tales of brave men 
of old who had been in great hardship but had come 
through safely. In the spring they could abide quietly 
no longer. News had come to them of the way their 
friends were being persecuted. Once more the party 
went over to the moors of Scotland, and here again 
King Robert was found out by the English, and par- 
ties were sent to take him. They closed in round his 
hiding place (he and his band were not at that time 
strong enough to meet them in open battle), and 
he divided his men into four companies, who should 
go out in different directions and meet the English 
as they were searching in small parties. This was 
the time when King Robert was in the greatest 
danger, for he was by some mischance left alone, and 
he was set upon by three men. By his great strength 
and bravery he escaped safely from them, and was 
wandering alone on the hills on the eastern shore of 
Loch Dee, when he saw before him a solitary cabin. 
This was the hill where, when they separated, he and 
his four bands of followers had agreed to meet again, 



128 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

and he went, — for he was sore weary and had been 
long without food, — to the door of the cabin to ask 
if he might enter and rest awhile. He found an old 
housewife sitting on the bench, and she asked him 
what he was and whence he came and whither he went. 
''A wayfarer, dame," said he. 
'' All wayfarers are welcome here," said she, '' for 
the sake of one." 

'' Good dame, prithee, who may that one be .? " 
''Sir," quoth the good wife, ''that shall I you 
say. Robert Bruce is he, who is rightful lord of all 
this land. His foes are -now pressing him hard, but 
the day is coming, and not far off, when he shall be 
lord and king of all the land." 

" Dame, do you love him so well } " 
" Yes sir," said she, " so God me see." 
" Dame, lo ! it is he by you here," said the king, 
" for I am he." 

" Ha ! " said the dame, as she curtsied before 
him, "where are your men gone, and why are you 
thus alone .? " for even while she rejoiced at his 
presence, she was angered that he should be there 
alone and unprotected in her cabin. 

"At this moment, dame, I have no men." 
" That may not be," she said, " for I have two sons, 
strong and hardy. They shall become your men." 




ROBERT BRUCE 



129 



130 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

While he was eating the homely fare which the 
good dame set before him, her two sons came in, 
and they knelt gladly before him and served him 
from that time forth. 

This is the second picture which the old writers 
give us of Robert Bruce, showing the love his people 
bore him. Legend has yet a third tale that is even 
more well known than these two, so that every one, 
whether he knows anything else about him or not, 
knows the story of Robert Bruce and the spider. 

This tells us that even to this brave king there 
came moments of discouragement. During the winter 
of his misfortune, word reached him that three of his 
four brothers had been killed by the English, that 
his wife was imprisoned, and that many more were 
suffering for his sake. He wondered if it was all 
worth while. Would it not be better if he went away 
to Palestine on the crusades and ceased to trouble 
Scotland by his presence ? These thoughts came to 
him one day as he was lying in hiding in a tiny, for- 
saken hut in the mountains. As he pondered on this 
wise, he lay idly watching a spider that was working 
over his head. Six times it tried to throw its thread 
across to a beam, and six times it failed. Then the 
thought came to Bruce : " Six times I have fought 
with the English, and six times I have been defeated. 



BRUCE AND THE SPIDER 131 

Now we shall see what will happen the seventh time. 
If the spider succeeds, it shall be a sign to me that 
I shall succeed. If not — " 

But he never had time to decide what he would 
do ''if not," for the seventh time the thread went 
safely across, and King Robert rose with new cour- 
age and went forth to fight the battle of liberty for 
the Scotch ; and legend says that from this time on 
King Robert never lost a battle. 

After this winter of exile Bruce's fortunes changed. 
He fought many successful battles, and won over all 
Scotland to his side, save only the castle of Stirling. 
That he gained at last by the famous battle of Ban- 
nockburn. You will read about that, and about the 
peace with England, in your English histories. Be- 
fore many years he was acknowledged by all Scotland 
to be king, and his Parliament sent communications 
to other powers, urging them to recognize the inde- 
pendence of Scotland. This is the way they ended 
one of these proclamations, '' As long as one hundred 
of us remain alive, we will never consent to subject 
ourselves to the English. For it is not glory, it is not 
riches, neither is it honor, but it is liberty alone that 
we contend for, which no honest man will lose but 
with his life," — which shows that the spirit of Robert 
Bruce had entered into the whole Scottish nation. 



QUEEN PHILIPPA AND THE 
CITIZENS OF CALAIS 

IT took France and England many centuries, and 
finally a war which dragged along from one genera- 
tion to another till it was called the Hundred Years' 
War, to become two separate nations whose kings 
and people did not interfere with one another. You 
remember that in the days of William the Conqueror 
one king tried to rule both kingdoms. Then King 
John lost all his French possessions ; but in the four- 
teenth century we find an English king, Edward III, 
claiming the throne of France, and supporting his 
claim with invading armies. The French liked no 
better than the English to have their land overrun 
by foreigners, and the great war began, one incident 
of which is this siege of Calais of our story. Sir 
John Froissart, a French knight, wrote down in a 
very quaint and picturesque style many stories of this 
war, and no one of them is prettier than this one 
which I am going to tell to you, keeping as close 
as I can to his manner of telling. 

It was in 1 346. The English had won the battle 

of Crecy, and now an army moved on Calais, one of 
132 



THE SIEGE OF CALAIS 



^33 



the strongest French cities, for "the EngHsh king was 
very wroth at the people of Calais forthe great damages 
and displeasures they had done him on the sea before." 

When the king of England was come before 
Calais, he built a camp and a fortress, from which he 
could lay his siege. He had carpenters make houses 
and lodgings of great timber, and set the houses like 
streets, and cover them with reed and broom, so 
that it was like a little town ; and there was every- 
thing to sell, and a market place to be kept every 
Tuesday and Saturday for flesh and fish, houses for 
cloth, and for bread and wine, and all other things 
necessary. This the king did because he would not 
assail the town of Calais, for he thought it but a lost 
labor. (That was because the walls and towers and 
defenses of the city were so strong.) He spared his 
people and his artillery, and said that he would 
famish those in the town with long siege. 

When the captain of Calais saw the manner of the 
Englishmen's attack, he ordered all the poor people 
of the city to leave Calais. It would be hard enough 
for the well-to-do, who could afford to buy provisions, 
to live through such a siege as was before them. 
The city must not be burdened by a host of poor 
people. So on a Wednesday the gates were opened, 
and there issued out of the town men, women, and 



134 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

children, more than seventeen hundred. As they 
passed through the EngUsh army it was demanded 
of them why they departed, and they said because 
they had nothing to hve on. Then the Enghsh king 
did them that grace that he suffered them to pass 
through his host without danger, and gave them 
meat and drink to dinner, and to every person 
two-pence in alms. 

Then Froissart tells the story of the long siege, 
how it went on for many months, until the citizens 
were truly famished for food, since the English camped 
on every side and allowed none to be brought in to 
them ; how they made sallies and attacks, but could 
not conquer the great English army ; and how at last 
the French king raised an army and attempted to 
relieve Calais, but the roads thither were so well kept 
by English troops that he could not approach. 

When they who were within Calais heard that the 
French king had departed, they knew that their last 
hope of succor had failed them, and they were in 
great sorrow. They took counsel together and desired 
their captain, Sir John of Vienne, to go to the walls 
of the town and make a sign that he wished to speak 
with some person from the English host. When the 
English king heard this, he sent thither two English 
knights, Sir Gaultier and Sir Basset, 



THE PLEA FOR MERCY 1 35 

Then Sir John said to them : '' Sirs, ye be right 
vaUant knights in deeds of arms, and ye know well 
how the king of France my master hath commanded 
us to keep in his behalf this town ; and we have 
done all that lieth in our power. Now our last succor 
hath failed us, and we be so sore straitened that we 
have naught on which to live, but must all die of 
famine, unless this noble and gentle king of yours 
will take mercy on us : the which we request you to 
desire him to do, — to have pity on us, and to let us 
go and depart as we be, and let him take the town 
and the castle, and all the goods that be therein, the 
which is great abundance." 

Then Sir Gaultier said : '' Sir, we know somewhat 
of the intention of the king our master. Know surely 
for truth that it is not his mind that ye nor they 
within the town should depart so. It is his will that 
ye put yourselves into his will, to ransom all such as 
pleaseth him, and to put to death such as he decide : 
for they of Calais have caused him to take much 
trouble and lost him many of his men, so that he is 
sore grieved against them." 

Then the captain said : '' Sir, this is too hard a 
matter to us. We have endured much pain ; but 
we shall yet endure as much pain as ever knights 
did, rather than to consent that the worst lad in the 




THE ENGLISH BEFORE CALAIS 



136 



THE KING'S WARD 



^Z7 



town should fare any worse than the greatest of us 
all. Therefore we pray you that you will go and 
speak to the king of England, and desire him to 
have pity on us, for we trust that by the grace of 
God his purpose shall change." 

The English knights returned to the king and told 
him all that had been said, and he declared that he 
would hear to nothing else but that they should yield 
to him, for him to do with them according to his 
pleasure. Then Sir Gaultier protested, saying that 
if they treated the French knights so, some day, 
when they themselves were in the hands of the 
French, they might be so dealt with. All the lords 
supported him, and the king, saying that he would 
not go against all his knights, yielded and told Sir 
Gaultier that he might say to the men of Calais that 
if they would let six of the chief citizens of the town 
come out '' bareheaded, barefooted, barelegged, and 
in their shirts, with halters about their necks, and 
with the keys of the town and' castle in their hands," 
and if these were yielded simply to his pleasure to 
do with them as he would, he would '' take the rest 
to mercy." 

Sir Gaultier returned and found the captain still 
on the wall, abiding for an answer. When he had 
heard the message, he begged Sir Gaultier to tarry 



138 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

on the wall a little space while he went to the town 
and showed this to the citizens who sent him thither. 

The captain returned to the market place and 
sounded the common bell, and all the men and 
women assembled there, and the captain made report 
of all that he had done and asked what was their 
answer. At his report the people began to weep and 
make much sorrow, and the richest citizen of the 
town, Eustace of Saint-Pierre, rose and -said : '' Sirs, 
great and small, it would be great mischief to suffer 
so many people to die as be in this town, either by 
famine or by the pleasure of the king, when there is 
a way to save them. Wherefore I will be the first 
to put my life in jeopardy." 

Then another honest citizen arose and said : '' I 
will keep company with my friend and neighbor 
Eustace." 

And still another rose, and another, until there 
were six of the most honorable citizens of the town. 
They went and appareled themselves as the king 
desired, and the people went with them to the gate, 
and there was much weeping and lamentation. Then 
the gate was opened, and the captain went out with 
the six citizens and said to Sir Gaultier : '' Sir, I 
deliver to you these six citizens, and I swear to you 
truly that they be and were to-day most honorable, 



BEFORE THE KING 139 

rich, and notable citizens of all the town of Calais. 
Wherefore, gentle knight, I require you to pray the 
king to have mercy on them, that they die not." 

'' I cannot say what the king will do," quoth Sir 
Gaultier, '' but I shall do for them the best I can." 

Then the six citizens went toward the king, and 
the captain again entered the town. 

When Sir Gaultier presented these citizens to the 
king, they knelt down and gave him the keys, say- 
ing that they offered themselves up to submit to 
his pleasure in order to save the rest of the people 
of Calais. 

The hearts of all the lords and knights were 
touched at the sight of these noble men, shorn of 
all sign of rank and all means of defense, offering 
themselves for their city, but the king looked coldly 
upon them and commanded that their heads be struck 
off. Sir Gaultier spoke for them, saying that this 
was a cruel deed and would hurt the king's fair re- 
nown, but his words had no weight. The king turned 
away, saying, " They of Calais have caused many 
of my men to be slain, wherefore these shall die." 

Then Queen Philippa knelt down before him, 
and, weeping sorely, said : " Gentle sir, since I have 
crossed the sea from my home in great peril to 
be with you, I have desired nothing of you. Now 



140 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

therefore I humbly beg you, in honor of God and 
for the love of me, that ye will have mercy on these 
six citizens." 

The king looked sullenly at the queen and stood 
still for a space in a study, and then said : ''Ah, dame, 
I would you had been elsewhere, for if ye make 
such request to me, I cannot deny you. Wherefore 
I give them to you, to do j^oz^r pleasure with them." 

The queen caused the six citizens to be brought 
to her apartment, and had the halters taken from 
their necks, and had them newly clothed in garments 
suitable to their station, and gave them their din- 
ner at their leisure. Finally she had each of them 
brought out of the English host under safe guard 
and set at liberty. 

Wherefore men everywhere honor the six citizens 
of Calais, that they were willing to give their lives in 
order to save their people, and hold likewise in lov- 
ing remembrance the good Queen Philippa, who by 
her gentleness and mercy did win back their lives. 



JOAN OF ARC 

THE story of Joan of Arc is the most wonderful 
story in the history of any nation of Europe. 
In the hour of France's need, when she was being 
conquered by Enghsh armies, when her forces were 
so divided by civil war that it seemed as if there 
were no true Frenchmen, but that every lord and 
district were for themselves, when she had no recog- 
nized king, but only an uncrowned Dauphin, — in 
this hour of her need there was raised up for France 
a Maiden for a deliverer. History has no story more 
beautiful or more mysterious. 

It was ninety years since the opening of the war 
with England. Before the war began, France had 
been split up into many small districts and towns 
and estates, which were managed by different lords 
and counts. These petty rulers spent most of their 
time quarreling with each other in just such fashion 
as the kings of England and France were now fight- 
ing over their crowns ; and neither lords nor kings 
paid much heed to the good of the land or of the 
people. This was the weakness of France, which 
had given England the chance to begin the Hundred 
141 



142 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Years' War. Ninety years of warfare under weak 
kings, who could not command the respect of their 
lords, had made matters worse. 

The land was in a terrible state. Peasants had no 
courage to plant their crops, for armies would shortly 
trample them down. Merchants could not ply their 
trade for fear of bands of soldiers, which robbed 
them on the roads. All France was broken up into 
districts under tyrant lords, and the young Dauphin, 
whom half the nobles did not recognize as their law- 
ful king, was as helpless as the rest. He held his 
court at the litde village of Chinon in southern 
France, and tried to forget his misery and weakness 
in music and entertainment, while the English occu- 
pied Paris and the north of France and at last moved 
on Orleans, the strong city of central France, the 
'' key to the south." 

The English began the siege of Orleans in October, 
1428. They took the neighboring towns and built a 
chain of forts inclosing the city, planning, by shutting 
off supplies and storming the city from their defenses, 
to force it to surrender. Two thousand brave men 
were defending the city, but they could not drive off 
the great English army. They had been defeated in 
their sallies, and no strong French force came to their 
help from without. The Dauphin could not rally 



THE COMING OF THE MAIDEN 143 

men to so hopeless a cause, even if he had the 
ambition, and he was a weak lad without strength 
of purpose or experience. So he and his courtiers 
were entertaining themselves from day to day at the 
castle of Chinon, knowing too well that if Orleans 
was lost, all France was lost. 

To this court in early March came news that a 
marvelous Maiden was coming to the rescue of 
France. Next came a letter to the Dauphin from 
this Joan of Arc, saying that she was on her way to 
his court. She arrived at Chinon, and for two days 
his advisers refused her audience with the Dauphin. 
Then they yielded and let the peasant girl be brought 
before him. 

From the knights who accompanied the Maiden 
and were convinced of her mission, the Dauphin and 
his courtiers had heard tales of Joan as one who had 
visions and knew more than ordinary people could 
divine. When they led her into the palace room, to 
test her powers the Dauphin stepped down from his 
chair of state and stood with the nobles as if he were 
one of them. It was evening. The light of fifty 
torches illumined the hall, and a brilliant array of 
nobles and knights stood about. She entered, a 
simiple Maiden of eighteen, in peasant dress, with a 
clear, pure face and steady blue eyes with which she 



144 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

searched the faces of the smihng courtiers. Without 
a moment's hesitation she went forward and knelt 
before Charles. 

'' Gentle Dauphin," she said, '' God give you 
good life." 

''But it is not I that am the king; there is the 
king," said Charles, pointing to a richly dressed noble. 

'' Gentle Prince, it is you and no other," she said. 
Then rising, '' Gentle Dauphin, I am Joan the Maid. 
I am sent to you by the King of Heaven to tell you 
that you shall be consecrated and crowned at Rheims." 

Such was the coming of the Maid of France to 
the court of her king. They questioned her. She 
gave to the king a private sign which convinced him 
that she was inspired of God. To the council of 
judges to whom they sent her to see whether she 
was a witch, — for witches were much feared in 
those days, — she told her simple story. 

'' I come from the village of Domremy," she said, 
''and am the daughter of Jacques d'Arc. In my home 
I was employed during my childhood with the ordi- 
nary cares of the house. I was taught to sew and 
spin. I went often to the church to pray. When I 
was thirteen years old a Voice came to me from 
God for my help and guidance. The first time that 
I heard this Voice I was very much frightened. It 



JOAN'S STORY 145 

was midday in summer in my father's garden. This 
first time the Voice told me to be a good girl and 
go to church." 

Since then, she continued, the Voice had come to 
her many times, and it had told her more and more 
often ''of the great pity that there was in France," 
and that she must go and help her country. The 
years had gone on, soldiers had appeared in the 
country side, and more often she had heard the Voice. 
She had pleaded that she was only a poor girl and 
that she could not ride and lead armed men. But 
visions had come to her, and the Voice had returned, 
until finally it said, '' Go, raise the siege which is 
being made before the City of Orleans." This time 
it told her just what she should do and how she 
should come to the Dauphin, and she had come. 

That was Joan's story, and the learned men who 
questioned her could not shake her out of it. They 
sent to Domremy and found it was even as she 
said. But they questioned her the more, and no one 
gave her any help to her mission. At last she grew 
weary. She went to Charles and said : '' Gentle 
Dauphin, why do you delay to believe me } Already 
a battle has been lost at Orleans since my coming. 
I tell you that God has taken pity on you and your 
people. Take me to Orleans." 



146 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

Still, he did nothing, and weeks passed. Always 
her cry was, '' Take me to Orleans. There I will 
show you the signs that I am sent to do, and God 
will give the victory." 

At last the king made up his mind to take the 
chance. Joan was promised that she should go with 
an army to Orleans. She was offered armor and 
horses. She chose white armor, and had a white 
banner made with the lilies of France upon a white 
field, and selected a beautiful coal-black horse. So she 
came to Orleans with the army, and as she passed 
into the city, riding on her black horse and carrying 
her banner, she was hailed by the people with joy 
indescribable. They had lost all hope, but now, by 
the strength that was in the Maid, were comforted 
as if the siege were over. '' Verily," says the record, 
'' they gazed at her as if they were beholding God." 

Before she had been with the army many days, 
Joan found that the generals intended to carry out 
their plans instead of hers. How should she, a peas- 
ant girl who had never seen an army, know how to 
manage a campaign and raise a siege ? But she did 
know, and the generals found it out. When they 
obeyed her, all went well. When they deceived her, 
she saw through their schemes, or, if they carried 
them out in her absence, they were defeated. 




147 



148 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

The English had surrounded the city with forts. 
These Joan prepared to attack. They had heard of 
her coming and had laughed with scorn at the idea 
of a Maiden conquering them. But when she had 
led charges against them and had been always victo- 
rious, the soldiers began to be filled with a supersti- 
tious fear and to declare that she was a witch. 

At last the English concentrated their forces in 
two forts, Augustin's and Tournelles. The latter 
commanded the bridge across the river Loire to 
Orleans. The former Joan and her soldiers took. 
Then the French generals held a council without 
Joan. They wanted now to wait, since the English 
were reduced to such desperate straits, till reenforce- 
ments came. Then they could surely take the fort of 
Tournelles with safety. They sent this word to Joan. 

''You have been at your council," she said. ''I 
also have been at mine. The wisdom of God is 
greater than yours. Rise early to-morrow, do better 
than your best, quit me not, for to-morrow I have 
much to do, more than ever I have done, and to- 
morrow my blood shall flow from a wound." 

Next morning her host prepared a fish for her 
breakfast. 

'' Stay, Joan," he said, '' let us partake together 
of this fish which is just fresh caught." 



VICTORY 



149 



" Keep it till evening, " said the Maid. '' Then I 
shall come back across the bridge of the Tournelles, 
and I will bring you an Englishman to eat it with us." 

She hurried away, and the sun was just rising 
above the Loire when the French began the attack 
on the fort of Tournelles, which was to last all that 
long day. 

It was a terrible battle. Joan was wounded even 
as she had predicted she would be, by an arrow which 
struck between the neck and the shoulder. For a 
few moments she withdrew from the combat, but 
soon she was back again, bringing, by the very sight 
of her waving banner, new cheer to the hearts of the 
French and dismay to the English. Finally she stood 
on the edge of the moat, and then, with a last bold 
sally, the fort was stormed and Joan's banner was 
flying from the battlements of the last English fort. 
Night fell, and the French returned victorious over 
the bridge of the Loire, even as Joan had prophesied 
that morning that they would. 

The next morning the French saw the English 
drawing up their men in line. They desired to go 
out once more and attack them, but Joan forbade. 

'' No ! there has been enough fighting," she said. 
'' If the English attack, we shall defeat them. We 
are to let them go in peace if they will." 



I50 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

From the walls of the city the Frenchmen looked 
out at the English. 

*' Do they face us," asked Joan, ''or have they 
turned their backs ? " 

'' Their backs are towards us ; they are marching 
away." 

''Then let them go," said Joan; and that night 
there was not an Englishman left south of the Loire. 

The taking of Orleans roused France. From it 
and the events that followed may be dated a new 
France, — a France united for the first time in its 
history into one nation. The victory roused hope. It 
stirred the lords to work together. It united the 
people, also, in loyalty to Charles, for Joan was faith- 
ful to her first word to the Dauphin. He was to be 
crowned at Rheims. 'She returned after the victory 
to the court of Charles and desired him to come 
at once to Rheims ; but the country between his 
court and Rheims was held by the English, and he 
would not start. Even yet he was not quite sure 
of her, and he and his timid advisers held frequent 
councils. 

" Noble Dauphin," she said, " do not hold so 
many and so weary councils, but come to Rheims 
and receive the crown." 



THE CORONATION 151 

At last he consented to go, if the way was clear. 
She went ahead with her forces, and in one week of 
marvelous victories prepared his way. Then finally 
he ceased his questioning and started for Rheims. 

On the evening of the sixteenth of July, 1429, 
Charles and the Maid entered the city. The next 
day, in the beautiful cathedral of Rheims, he was 
crowned King of France. It was a grand spectacle. 
Four nobles, in full armor, had ridden through the 
streets that morning to the old abbey where the 
monks kept under strict guard the sacred vial of oil 
for the king's consecration, which was said to have 
been used by Clovis. They had brought it with all 
honor, carrying it, under a splendid canopy of cloth 
of gold, to the cathedral, where a great company of 
lords and nobles in glittering array were waiting.] 
Thither Joan had come in her white armor, bearing 
her banner, and the ceremony of consecration and 
coronation had been performed. Charles was anointed 
with the holy oil by the archbishop, and then, as the 
crown was put on his head, a peal of trumpets rang 
out, announcing to the waiting throng that France 
had once more a king. All the people cried '' Noel ! " 
and '' Long live King Charles! " and as the multi- 
tude both within and without the cathedral shouted, 
Joan knelt at the king's feet, weeping, and said : 



152 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

'' Gentle king, now is fulfilled the will of God, who 
willed it that you should come to Rheims and 
receive your crown." 

There were tears in the eyes of the king and all 
his knights as the fair Maid who had done these 
wonders knelt, weeping for joy, at his feet. 

The story of united France begins with the coro- 
nation scene in the cathedral at Rheims. Would 
that the story of Joan of Arc ended there, and that 
she could have been allowed to slip away, as she 
longed to, with her father and mother, back to her 
simple home in Domremy ! But the king would not 
allow it. The English had not yet been fully driven 
out of the land, and the Maid must stay and help 
the armies. She did help, but the generals once 
more distrusted her and would not follow her advice ; 
her king did not support her ; and Joan knew and 
prophesied to those who were with her that her end 
was near. At last, even as she had foretold, she 
was taken by the English. 

^The rest of the sad story is quickly told ; yet none 
may read it without deep sorrow. The English took 
the Maid and put her in prison, and when she had 
lain in captivity for many weary months, they brought 
her out and tried her as a ''witch." That was the 



THE DEATH OF THE MAIDEN 153 

name her accusers, both French and Enghsh, had 
given her from the first. To us it is a strange mystery. 
People in those days had great dread of any person 
who seemed to have more than ordinary powers, for 
they thought these a sign that evil spirits possessed 
that person. Such people the church decreed should 
be put to death, because they would be dangerous to 
the world. ' 

For many days the judges questioned Joan, and 
her answers were simple and pure as was the story 
which she had told to the Dauphin at her coming. 
But there were many things about her Voices which 
she could not tell them, and the judges wanted her 
to promise some things which she believed her Voices 
forbade her to say. So they condemned her, deciding 
that she was a witch and a heretic, and must there- 
fore be burned. And the saddest thing of all is that 
the French did not lift a hand to save from death 
this Maid who had been their deliverer. 

So Joan died a cruel death, but the work which 
she had begun in France did not die with her. 
She had united the French, and they did not fall 
apart again into quarrelsome factions. King Charles 
showed a new spirit as he began his reign. Even 
amid the dangers of war he took time to unite his 
nobles and keep them in order under him. The 



154 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

English were driven out by this newly roused French 
nation. The Hundred Years' War was ended, and 
a peace was concluded by which France was left free 
within her own provinces, untroubled by foreigners. 
Happy days had come to the nation, and in the 
universal joy Joan was not forgotten. Twenty years 
after her death King Charles asked the church to 
allow a new trial of Joan. She could not be brought 
to life, but her name could be cleared. She could be 
declared innocent of the charges for which she had 
suffered death. The case was re-tried. Every one 
who had known Joan from her childhood came and 
told about her, and learned men wrote it down. 
That is why we know so much about her, though all 
this happened five hundred years ago ; and when you 
are older you will read this full story of her life, as 
they wrote it down during this trial, by which it was 
proved that she was even as we have pictured her, 
innocent and pure and good and kind and wise. 
The learned men could not bring her back by their 
judgment, but it is good to remember that they did 
agree, though twenty years too late, to honor their 
deliverer, the Maid of Orleans,- who had given to 
them a new and united France. 



THE " BEGGARS " OF HOLLAND 

YOU remember how in the south of Europe the 
little Republic of Venice built itself up on the 
sand flats of the Mediterranean and made its success- 
ful stand for independence. Away up in the north 
of Europe there was another brave, liberty-loving 
people, which had undertaken to build a nation on 
the lowlands, or Netherlands, as they were called, at 
the edge of the North Sea. These were the Dutch 
people, one of the best branches of the old Teutonic 
stock from which all our nations came. They were 
such a little people that they had a hard time keeping 
clear of their German and French neighbors, who 
were determined to govern them; but at last, in 1477, 
they gained from their rulers a paper called the 
Groot Privilegie (the Great Privilege), which gave 
to the people even more rights than the Magna 
Charta had given to the English. But the rulers 
of Holland had no more intention than the kings 
of England of being bound by such a paper, — 
until they were forced to, — and that is where the 
'' Beggars " come in ! 

155 



156 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

It was in the sixteenth century that the Netherlands 
came to be oppressed beyond endurance. They were 
one of the kingdoms included by emperors of Europe 
in their realm, and they had endured much from these 
foreign rulers. The last two emperors, Maximilian 
and Charles V, had taken away many liberties of 
the Great Privilege ; they had taxed the province, 
which" was rich and prosperous, for huge sums of 
money to spend in their wars or on their court life. 

''They are men of butter," one emperor had 
said. '' I have tried them and they will submit to 
anything." 

The Dutch were a slow people, but the next 
emperor, Charles's son, Philip II of Spain, was to find 
that they were not '' men of butter," to be molded 
this way or that at the pleasure of a foreign ruler.- 
He had been brought up in Spain, and the people 
of all other lands found him heartless and disagree- 
able. Do you remember that we said the patriots 
found out what were the universal rights of men by 
finding out what things were to them so precious 
that if they were taken away life became unendurable 
to them .? Philip tried to take one of those rights 
away from the Dutch. He began to oppress and even 
to put to death every one whose religion was dif- 
ferent from his own. The Dutch found that this 



THE COMING OF THE CAVALIERS 157 

was a new and very terrible danger to their liberty ; 
for if a ruler did this, he was breaking at the same 
time every other law of freedom. 

That was why, on an April day in 1 566, the whole 
city of Brussels was stirred by the news that a long- 
expected procession was soon to enter the city. That 
was why the streets were thronged by eager crowds, 
the gates were watched, and when at last, at about 
six o'clock in the evening, the word was passed that 
the company was in sight, the crowds broke into 
wild huzzas. 

Through the gates rode two horsemen, followed 
by two more, and more and more, till two hundred 
had entered the city ; and as the long line wound 
through the narrow streets of Brussels, the multitude 
could not contain itself for joy. 

Who were these men whose coming stirred the city 
and was to stir the nation ? They were not warriors. 
That was plain, for their costume was of rich cloths 
and furs rather than the steel armor of the hated 
Spanish soldiers, and they wore golden chains around 
their necks instead of glittering breastplates. They 
were wealthy. That one could see by a glance at their 
plumed hats and jeweled swords, and at the rich 
trappings of their steeds. They were also handsome 
and young. But it was not for their youth or their 



158 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

beauty or their wealth that the people welcomed them. 
They were a band of nobles and gentlemen of rank 
who had come together to speak for the people's 
liberty. The Duchess Regent of Holland, Philip's 
sister Margaret, was sitting with her councilors in 
Brussels, and these gallant cavaliers had come to 
present to her a '' Request." 

The next day one hundred more gentlemen arrived, 
and on the third morning the crowds gathered once 
more along the road to the palace. At a little before 
noon they came two by two, as before. This time 
they were on foot, with no gay trappings of steeds 
and banners. At their head walked two men who 
were the idols of the people. On the right Count 
Brederode, tall and light, with handsome features 
and fair, curling locks, reaching, after the fashion of 
the day, to his shoulders. He bore in his hand the 
parchment on which was written the '' Request," 
and as he walked along, acknowledging with stately 
bows and gracious smile the plaudits of the people, 
those who looked on remembered that he claimed a 
straight descent, unbroken through five hundred 
years, from the original sovereigns of Holland. 
With him walked Count Louis, the truest knight 
whom the Netherlands could boast, small of stature 
but well formed, and agile in his movements, with 



PRESENTATION OF THE PETITION 159 

close-clipped brown hair, peaked beard, and dark 
eyes. The people knew him to be as gentle and 
generous as he was brave and steadfast, and they 
loved him for his ready wit and his warm heart. 

These were the leaders, and behind them walked 
three hundred cavaliers, nearly all young, many of 
whom bore the most ancient names in the nobility 
of the nation. In the square before the palace an 
immense crowd welcomed them with deafening 
cheers and clapping of hands. They passed up the 
steps, through the great hall, and into the council 
chamber where the Duchess Regent Margaret was 
seated in her chair of state, surrounded by the high- 
est officials of the land, among them several of the 
dark-haired Spaniards whom Philip had left to help 
his sister rule the land. As the long line wound 
into the room and took their places, the Duchess 
turned pale and showed much agitation. 

As soon as all h^d entered. Count Brederode 
advanced, made a low obeisance, and spoke. He 
began by begging Duchess Margaret to consider 
them a loyal and honorable company, gathered be- 
fore her with no evil intent but humbly petitioning 
her, and her brother through her, in behalf of their 
land. They had come on foot and unarmed in proof 
of their sincerity. Then he read the ''Request," 




i6o 



THE PETITION l6l 

which was, as he had said, loyal and respectful in 
tone, but which set forth in no uncertain terms the 
distress of the country and the danger of a rebellion 
of the common people. It pictured the sufferings of 
the people through the famine that was sweeping 
the land. It told how many had been forced by 
persecution to leave the land, and how great numbers 
of fugitives were sailing every day to England. This 
terrible state of affairs had come about through the 
edicts of the emperor that all who did not agree with 
him in religious faith should be killed. Fifty thou- 
sand had been put to death. The land was impover- 
ished, the people were fleeing to escape persecution, 
and still the Spanish troops of Philip stayed and 
continued their bloody work. The petition begged 
that an envoy be sent to the emperor to tell him of 
these things and request the removal of the foreign 
troops, which were such an indignity to the whole 
Dutch people. 

He finished reading, and Duchess Margaret re- 
mained silent, clasping her hands in agitation and 
with tears rolling down her cheeks. As soon as she 
could command her voice, she said that she would 
advise with her councilors and give the petitioners 
such answer as seemed fitting. Count Brederode 
bowed his acquiescence, and the long line of nobles 



1 62 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

began to pass from the chamber. But they did not 
march quickly out as they had come in. Before he 
went, each cavaUer advanced to the Duchess and 
made before her the ''caracole," a sweeping bow. 
This gave time for her to see each man, and made 
the departure a long and impressive ceremony. 

The Duchess was left at last with her councilors 
to discuss this unheard-of demonstration. William 
of Orange, governor of three provinces, and the 
man who was to do more than any other man for 
the freedom of Holland, began the debate. He spoke 
reassuringly to the agitated Duchess, reminding her 
that it was even as the Count had said. These men 
were not rebels. They were loyal and honorable gen- 
tlemen, come with sincere wish for the good of the 
land, which was indeed on the eve of revolution. 
His was the only calm voice in the council. As the 
discussion waxed hot, one man, a high official and 
close adviser of the Duchess, becoming impatient 
that so many words should be wasted over so trifling 
a matter, exclaimed in a passion : '' What, Madam, 
is it possible that your Highness can entertain fears 
of these beggars ? " 

The council broke up at noon, to return in the 
afternoon to consider the matter further, and as this 
same official stood at the window of his inn and saw 



THE "BEGGARS" 163 

some of the petitioners pass by, he repeated again 
the phrase which had pleased him, '' Look, there go 
those beggars," and one of them overheard him. 

That night Count Brederode gave in his mansion 
a fine banquet to all his colleagues. The tables were 
set for three hundred, the board glittered with gold 
and silver and was loaded with rich food, and all 
was merriment and glee among the cavaliers, now 
that the serious business of the day was done. 

Amid the laughter and gayety the talk came round 
more than once to the cause in which they were 
come together, and at one of these times the con- 
temptuous speech of the Duchess's adviser was re- 
peated, to the great anger of those who heard it for 
the first time. As the talk about this insult grew 
more wild and violent, Count Brederode sprang to 
his feet : '' Beggars ! " he cried, " do they call us 
beggars .'' It were no shame to be beggars for our 
country's good. Let us accept the name ! " 

He beckoned to one of his pages, who brought 
him at his request a leather wallet, such as was worn 
in that day by professional beggars, and a large 
wooden bowl, such as they carried from house to 
house begging kind housewives to fill it with food. 
The count hung the wallet round his neck, filled 
the bowl with wine, and drained it. 



1 64 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

'' To the Health of the Beggars ! Long hve the 
Beggars ! " he cried, and all the company took up 
the cry. 

Brederode slipped off the wallet and threw it to 
his nearest neighbor, handing him at the same time 
the bowl. He in his turn slipped it round his neck, 
took the bowl, and filled it with wine, drinking to 
the same toast, '' Long live the Beggars " ! And so 
the wallet and the bowl passed around the table, and 
every man pushed aside his silver goblet to drink 
with his fellows out of the common wooden bowl. 
Each, as he held the bowl in his hand, threw a pinch 
of salt into the wine, for to take bread and salt to- 
gether has always been in every land a symbol of 
friendship, and as he threw in the salt he repeated : 

" By the salt, by the bread, by the wallet too. 
The Beggars will PxOt change, no matter what they do." 

They laughed as they did it, but there was much 
behind their laughter. They did not change. The 
name chosen that night was to spread like wildfire 
over the Netherlands, and to stand to every Dutch- 
man for a lover of liberty. There were to be '' Beg- 
gars of the Sea," who would drive off the Spanish 
warships; ''Beggars of the Land," who would de- 
fend the homes of Holland ; '' Beggars of Ley den," 



THE DUTCH PATRIOTS 165 

who were to say, '' Better our land be ruined than be 
conquered," and were to open the dikes and let the 
sea flow in over their fields ripe with the harvest, in 
order to drive back by water the enemy whom they 
were not strong enough in numbers to turn back by 
the sword. 

Count Brederode's guests had come to his banquet 
in velvets and gold laces. They went out to array 
themselves in doublets and hose of ashen gray, with 
short cloaks of the same color, all of coarsest ma- 
terials. The next day they appeared in the streets 
carrying beggars' pouches round their necks and 
beggars' bowls slung at their sides. 

The Netherlands were not to be delivered in a day. 
It took the life and death of William of Orange, 
'' Father of the Dutch Republic," to free the land ; 
it took the life and death of many a brave '' Beggar " 
besides ; and it took fifteen years of struggle. English- 
men came over in great numbers and helped the 
Dutch, seeing that these brothers across the Channel 
were fighting a battle not only for themselves but for 
all liberty-loving people. But when the war was over, 
the Dutch had won not only the religious freedom for 
which they began their fight but political freedom 
as well. King Philip of Spain was deposed ; his au- 
thority was denounced by the Dutch nation. On the 



1 66 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

twenty-sixth of July, 1581, the seventeen provinces 
of United Netherlands published their Declaration 
of Independence, throwing off their allegiance to 
King Philip. ''All mankind know," began this 
Declaration, " that a prince is appointed by God to 
cherish his subjects, even as a shepherd to guard his 
sheep. When, therefore, the prince does not fulfill 
his duty as protector ; when he oppresses his sub- 
jects, destroys their ancient liberties, and treats them 
as slaves, he is to be considered, not a prince, but a 
tyrant." Thus they formed a republic which was the 
forerunner of our great republic across the seas, and 
adopted their motto of union, '' By concord, little 
things become great." 




THE COMING OF THE PILGRIMS 167 

To this republic of United Netherlands, with its 
newly won liberty, came within thirty years a com- 
pany of English folk, — men, women, and children, — 
fleeing from persecution for their religious faith. In 
the earlier days, when Spain ruled the Netherlands, 
it had been Dutch people who had slipped away and 
sought shelter in tolerant England. Now a wave of 
persecution was sweeping England. 

In one- of the eastern counties of England, right 
in the heart of the district that had been settled in 
olden times by the adventurous and freedom-loving 
Danes, there had grown up in the minds of a little 
company of people a great longing for religious 
liberty. The church had come to be managed by the 
rulers of the land. They began to see that what they 
felt to be one of the rights of man was being taken 
away from them. They could not worship as they 
chose. The state decreed how the church should be 
managed, and what should be its forms of service. 
The leaders of these people had seen how free the 
people were in Holland, and they desired greatly to 
live in such liberty, and worship in the simplicity 
which was their wish. 

But when these English folk attempted to do 
this in England, they were not allowed. When their 
views became known, '' they could not continue in 



1 68 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

any peaceful condition," says William Bradford, 
their chronicler, '' but were hunted and persecuted 
on every side, — for some were taken and clapped 
into prison, others had their houses beset and watched 
night and day, and the most were fain to flee and 
leave their houses and habitations, and the means of 
their livelihood. So, seeing themselves thus mo- 
lested, by a joint consent they resolved to go into 
the Netherlands, where they heard was Freedom of 
Religion for all men," And from the time when, 
with many difficulties, they escaped by ship from 
England, these people were called Pilgrims, and so 
they are known to us who live in the land where 
they finally made their home. 

But first the Pilgrims went to Holland, and were 
kindly received, as Bradford tells us, by the hospitable 
Dutch. As they came into the waterways of these 
lowlands, it seemed to these English folk as if they 
were come into a new world. '' They saw many 
goodly cities, strongly walled. Also they heard a 
strange and uncouth language, and beheld the dif- 
ferent manners and customs of the people, with 
their strange fashions and attire : — ■ all differing 
from the plain country villages wherein they were 
bred, and had so long lived." 

They settled first in Amsterdam, and then a large 



THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND 169 

number of them desired to go to the fair city of 
Leyden. So they sent a memorial to the magistrates, 
asking that one hundred of them might come to 
dwell in Leyden, and the Court responded that their 
coming '' would be agreeable and welcome." 

In Leyden they went to work at trades and other 
employments to earn their livelihood, and of their 
record we may well be proud. '' Though many of 
them were poor," says the chronicler, ''yet there 
was none so poor but if they were known to be of 
that congregation, the Dutch (either bakers or others) 
would trust them in any reasonable matter, when 
they wanted money. This was because they had 
found by experience how careful they were to keep 
their word, and how diligent in their callings." And 
the magistrates, "about the time of their coming 
away, gave in the public place of justice this com- 
mendable testimony. These English, said they, have 
lived amongst us now these twelve years, and yet we 
never had any suit or accusation come against any 
of them." 

Fortunately for us they did not stay in Holland. 
The atmosphere of liberty was pleasant to them, but 
they could not remain in a land of foreign speech 
and customs and faith. " We live here but as men 
in exile, and in a poor condition," they said, and 



170 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

they began to long for a land which should be their 
own, and where they might establish themselves ac- 
cording to their own faith. They feared, too, that 
the little company would be scattered, and that the 
children would grow up in the Dutch ways. '' Lastly 
(and what was not least) they had a great hope and 
inward zeal of laying some good foundation, or at 
least to make some way thereunto." Therefore they 
took thought of '' those vast and unpeopled countries 
of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation," 
and they departed from the Netherlands and set sail 
in the Mayflozver, in 1620, for the new land of 
America, where the Teuton love of independence, 
which had inspired Hermann and Wittekind and 
Hereward and all the other patriots, was to create 
out of all nations of the earth a new nation of liberty. 



NOTES 



THE BEGINNING OF NATIONS 




This map makes no claim to giving a complete representation 
of the principalities of Europe at any one time. That would be 
impossible in so small a space and confusing even in a larger. It 
aims rather to show where the peoples lived which in the progress 
of our stories have been evolving into nationalities which were to 
persist. The period of " Barbarian and Noble " gave the outline 
map of Europe fairly permanent boundaries, but left Christendom 
divided into innumerable small states and kingdoms. The key- 
note of this later period is the beginning of nationalities, and 
those which appeared in the stories of the text have been named 
and located, even though the beginnings were most shadowy. 

171 



172 



PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



PURPOSE OF NOTES 



To the teacher or older reader, and to the thoughtful child, it 
has become plain already that this volume is far more than a 
storybook of patriotism. No story is put in without an educative 
purpose, and all the stories fit together like the blocks in a play- 
house, making, when put one upon another, a complete structure. 
It is to emphasize the unity of the book and, by additional em- 
phasis on the important points, by outlines, and by suggestive 
questions, to suggest ways of making the desired impression 
upon the child's mind that these Notes have been written. It 
will add to the child's interest in the heroes to talk over each 
tale and see what were the special ways in which this man and 
this period solved some of the questions of government, and so 
contributed to the world of to-day. Moreover, the mediaeval at- 
mosphere throws a glamour over such necessary facts of civics 
as the reason for taxes and the injustice of taxation without 
representation. These points have been fully brought out in the 
text. It remains only to emphasize them and to help make the 
impression of the stories lasting. 

The writings of the old chroniclers, on which many of the 
descriptions and incidents are based, are full of dramatic spirit. 
The attitude of these narrators to the events which they chron- 
icled was very close to that of a child to historic happenings. 
For this reason their pictures can be made so vivid to the child 
that he will give them back in his own language. The more he 
pictures them and acts them over to himself, the more deeply 
will their facts and lessons be imprinted on his mind. 



OUTLINE 
By dates 

Battle of the Teutoburg Forest 9 a.d. 

Growth of the Venetian Republic . ...... 400-810 

Charlemagne's wars with the Saxons 770-800 

Reign of Henry the Fowler 919-936 



NOTES 173 

Saxon revolt against William the 

Conqueror 1070 

Destruction of Milan 11 62 

Peace of Constance 1183 

Signing of the Magna Charta 121 5 

Earl Simon's Parliament , . 1265 

Swiss Revolt 1300-1315 

Crowning of Robert Bruce 1306 

Battle of Bannockburn 13 14 

Siege of Calais 1346 

Relief of Orleans 1429 

Organization of the " Beggars " 1566 

Founding of United Netherlands 1581 

Landing of the Pilgrims 1620 

By steps towaj'd fj'eedom 

Teuton country saved from becoming 

a Roman province ist century 

Venetian Republic formed and kept 

independent 6th to 9th 

German- Saxon struggle for independ- centuries 

ence 8th century 

Anglo-Saxon struggle against the Nor- 
mans nth century 

Lombard League formed in Italy 12th century 

Magna Charta granted in England 13th century 

English representative government 

established 13th century 

League of Swiss Cantons formed 14th century 

Scotland made an independent nation .... 14th century 

France and England separated 15th century 

United Netherlands founded 1 6th century 

America colonized . . . = 17th century 



174 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



THREE TEUTON BOYS 

Next to the study of the history of ottr own country, nearest in the 
degree and in the character of the interest with which it shottld be 
regarded, comes the history of Germany. . . . fute. Angle, Saxon, 
Dane, Norwegian, Norseman, all zaere Teutonic in origin, branches 
of one great tree of nations, springing from the stem, at differe?it 
heights from the ground. — Stubbs 

This is the picture of primitive German life which Tacitus 
gives. It is the irony of history that Rome trained in her armies 
the barbarians who were to destroy the empire. Yet we see that 
it was this intimate knowledge of Roman law and civilization on 
the part of the conquerors which saved to the Middle Ages the 
best of the ancient culture. 

Questions: i. Why were barbarian boys taken to Rome.'' 
2. What kind of life did the Teutons live in the forests .-^ 



KING MARBOD 

Germany was from the beginning leavened zvith a Roman 
element fvm which England was left free. — Stubbs 

In King Marbod we have a perfect illustration of the evolu- 
tion of a tyrant, in the strict sense of the word in which we are 
using it. We have added to our conception of a tyrant many 
qualities which went along with tyrannous rule, but by the real 
definition Marbod was a typical tyrant. Yet he founded the first 
Teuton city, probably the city of Prague. 

Questions: i. What changed Marbod from a patriot to a 
tyrant? 2. What acts made him seem to his people a tyrant? 



NOTES 175 



HERMANN THE DELIVERER 

Had these successes been unchecked^ the Romans would have 
permanently occupied the greatest paii. of Germany ; the Litin 
language and the manners of Italy might have prevailed as entirely 
over the language and manners of the Germans as they did over 
those of the Gauls and Spaniards, whilst the Teutonic tribes, 
pressed by the Romans on the Elbe, and by the Sclavonic nations 
on the Oder and the Vistula, would have been either gradtcally 
overpowered and lost, or at any rate zuould never have been able to 
spread that regeneratittg influence over the best portion of Europe, 
to which the excellence of oicr m.odern institutions may zV? great 
measure be referred. If this be so, the victory of Arminius deserz'es 
to be reckoned among the signal deliverances which have affected 
for centuries the happiness of mankind. — Thomas Arnold 

In this verdict of the importance of Hermann's victory, his- 
torians are practically agreed. In " Barbarian and Noble " we 
have seen the Teuton love of independence coming up against 
the Roman civilization. Here we review it from a different 
standpoint. It was this Teuton characteristic which, when com- 
bined with Christianity, made the difference between the ancient 
world and the mediaeval world. " The peculiar stamp of the 
Middle Ages is undoubtedly German." 

It is well for us to go back to these early stories. We get from 
them a sense of the continuity of history and of the essential 
unity of the race, — that we are indeed all of one blood. The 
Indian life, which is the only part of our own history showing 
primitive conditions, lacks much that can be supplied only by 
these first stories of our ancestors. 

Questions : i. In what ways did the Romans deprive the 
Teutons of their independence ? 2. Why did the Teutons object 
to the Roman taxes"? 3. Why is the taking away of a people's 
language one of the worst acts of tyranny that can be practiced ? 
4. Why are we so particularly interested in these stories of the 
Teuton race ? 



176 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



THE STORY OF VENICE 

Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee ; 
And zvas the safegtiard of the West: the zvorth 
Of Venice did not fall belozv her birth, 
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. 

Wordsworth 

There is nothing in history quite so perfect as the story of 
Venice. It illustrates the growth of a community unhampered, 
even stimulated, from without. It gives a picture of a primitive 
mode of life without the usual attendants of barbarian or savage 
participants. Its problems are the universal problems of gov- 
ernments, and it solves them one by one in a way which is as 
dramatic as it is obvious and intelligible. Above all, it throws 
round this development the picturesqueness and charm which 
one could find nowhere save in sunny Italy. This is a fresh 
story, which has not been worn threadbare by frequent telling, 
and ought to prove full of charm as well as instruction. We are 
often troubled in the struggles for independence by the fact that 
the people claiming rights may have no particular justice to 
back their claim. The right of the creator to his creation is 
dehghtfully clear-cut and obvious. 

The later development of Venice, which is no less fascinating, 
will be described in the later books ; in '' Sea Kings and Ex- 
plorers," in its commercial greatness, and in '' Craftsman and 
Artist," in its arts and industries. 

Questions: i. What drove the people of northern Italy to 
build a city on the water t 2. What claim did the Lombard dukes 
and the emperors give as- a reason why the Venetians should 
be subject to them ? 3. What did the people of Venice reply ? 
4. How did they come to have a doge } 5, Who chose him ? 



NOTES ' 177 

CHARLEMAGNE AND WITTEKIND 

They [the Saxons] were a splendid people, and much of the best 
blood that now circles in the veins of Germanic and Anglo-Saxo7i 
origin is derived from them. — MoMBERT 

By common consent of posterity the Saxo7t Witikind, although 
all bjit the barest facts of his life are lost, has been singled out as 
the woi-thiest opponent whom Charles ever met. In legend the war 
reduces itself to a duel between the two. They fight in single com- 
bat for the prize of Saxony. . . . The legend is not far from the 
tncth. The baptism of Witikind marks the birthday of united 
Christian Germany. — Davis 

This is distinctly a story with a moral. The young reader 
must come to see very plainly that a course of action may look 
entirely different from two opposite points of view. In " Bar- 
barian and Noble " he saw the good side of building up an em- 
pire. Here he sees the other side, and he sees why an empire 
was not to succeed, because it takes little account of the liberty 
of the individual man or the small nation. The Saxon war is in 
history the darkest part of Charlemagne's career. " Its only ex- 
cuse was its success," says one historian, and another, " Charle- 
magne was a terrible warrior, but he is chiefly distinguished for 
the fact that love of war was not his only incentive." 

Our Christmas tree is borrowed from this old world-tree wor- 
ship of the Germans. 

Questions: i. What was Charlemagne trying to do ? 2. The 
Teutons had fought for their language and their property. What 
added thing did the Saxons fight for.' 3. Why was it better for 
civilization that this once they should lose, and take the religion 
of their conqueror ? 



178 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



THE CHOOSING OF A KING 

"/if was a mighty step, fidl of consequences, this choice of Henry 
as king. Through it the rule of the Franks gave way to the rule of 
the Saxons. Moreover, he was a king chosen by election of the people. 
In this thotcght his choice may be considered as the beginning of the 
new Germait kingdo??i.^'' 

In this story of the choice of the first German king there are 
many points to be brought out. First, concerning Conrad : " This 
king," says a chronicler of the next century, " was so bent on the 
good of his fatherland that he sacrificed to it his personal enmity, 
— truly a rare virtue." Recall our explanation of "patriotism" 
or " fatherland-love " in the introduction. Here was a king who 
exemplified it. Again, notice the method of election, — nomination 
by the princes, acclamation by the people, with the raising of the 
right hand. Again, the way in which a war could start by a mis- 
take. The Milanese war began through a failure of provisions. 
Again, Henry's attitude to the church : " It was enough to him 
to be king through the mercy of God and the choice of the people. 
No priestly ceremony was needed to make a German king." 

Questions : i. How did the war between Conrad and Henry 
begin? 2. How did Conrad show himself a true patriot? 3. How 
was Henry elected and how did he get his name of Henry the 
Fowler ? 



HENRY THE FOWLER 

By his wise policy and the consistent pursuit and enforcement 
of it, he laid the foundatioit of a great national system. Reading 
of his measures for the foundation of cities seems like reading a 
story of colonization ; his extension of the boundaries of the empire 
entitles him to the praise of a conqueror, his victories over the Hun- 
garians to that of a deliverer. . . . Such is in brief the outline of 



NOTES 179 

the career and influetice of this great king, of whom, if more was 
known, as favorable afi idea might be foiyned as of Charles the 
Great or even as of the English Alfred. In him, just as in Alfred, 
is summed up the national hero, conqtieror, colonist, deliverer. 

Stubbs 

The tenth century was the worst century in history. The reign 
of Henry is its bright spot. Here we see the beginnings of a 
nation in the work of civiHzation. '' It is satisfactory," says Stille, 
" to find that the real title of those princely houses who struggled 
for the headship or kingship of the country in early times was in 
almost all cases the real service they had rendered in resisting 
the barbarian invaders." 

Questions: i. How did there come to be walled towns, and 
men living in cities instead of tilling the ground as farmers? 
2. How were these city dwellers to be fed at first ? 3. How did 
there come to be knights and rules for these knights ? 



HEREWARD THE SAXON 

A b}'ave hejv, zvho tried to do his duty to his count)y in troub- 
lous and disast?'ous days, to whom failure and despair were un- 
known. ... In his character we find the germ of that self-reliant 
courage to which are due the greatness and freedom of our country. 

Harward 

The Saxon heroes of England are the first heroes with whom 
we are directly concerned as our ancestors. In " Sea Kings and 
Explorers " the story of the coming of the Saxons to Britain will 
be told. Back of that we need not go, since, as Freeman has put 
it, " for us the conquest of the land which afterwards became our 
own has an interest above all the other conquests of Rome. But 
it is a purely geographical interest. The British victories of 
Caesar and Agricola were won, not over our own forefathers, but 
over those Celtic Britons whom our forefathers more thoroughly 



l8o PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 

swept away. The history of our own nation is for some ages to 
be looked for by the banks of the Elbe and the Weser, not by 
those of the Severn and the Thames." That was true of the his- 
tory before the coming of the Saxons to England. Looking back 
we rejoice that William was able to make England one kingdom, 
even at the expense of some misgovernment and suffering at the 
time ; but we can accord honor, in spite of this, to the men of the 
eleventh century, who naturally looked at it from another point 
of view and were as truly defenders of freedom as their ances- 
tors or their descendants. It should be remembered that both 
Normans and Saxons were of Teutonic stock. The family of 
John Harvard claimed descent from Hereward. 

Questions : i. The Danes and the Saxons had come together 
in Alfred's day. What two nationalities came together in England 
in Hereward's day ? 2. To what great family of nations did both 
belong ? 

FREDERICK BARBAROSSA 

There still remained at the heart of Lombardy the strong prin- 
ciple of national liberty^ imperishable among the perishing armies 
of her patriots, inconsum,able in the conflagration of her cities. 

Hallam 

" By the great elements of nationality," says Thomas Arnold, 
'" I mean race, language, institutions, and religion." We are 
studying the period of the rise of nationalities. These four things 
will be found to be the important elements in each. 

The dramatic ways in which the conquered peoples were 
forced to show their submission are of interest in these tales. 

Questions: i. Was Frederick always a tyrant? 2. Was he 
ever a tyrant ? 3. What rights did the Lombard cities want ? 



NOTES i8l 



KING JOHN AND THE BARONS 

" The maxims of liberty handed dozvn by the Germans speedily 
asserted themselves in a country so mtcch less permeated by Roman 
ideas. England was the first to find the form of modern liberty. '''' 

The stories of the winning of English liberty touch most 
closely our own institutions, and should be dwelt upon with 
particular care. The story of the granting of the Magna Charta 
can be made to take its true place of importance when it has the 
cumulative force of all the efforts for liberty behind it. 

Questions: i. What is a charter.^ ,2. Why did the patriots 
demand written charters .'' 3. The Teutons had given the spirit 
of liberty. What did the English give ? 4. How were taxes and 
liberty made possible at the same time ? 



SIMON OF MONTFORT 

We see, then, the foundations of the English Constitution laid 
in the thirteenth centiny. — DuRUY 

^^ A land of old and just renown, 
Where freedom slozvly broadens down, 
Frovi precedejit to precedent.'"'' 

The three elements, — the spending of money, the need to 
gather a Parliament, and then the measures of that Parliament, — 
are here made very dramatic. This is the crystallizing of the old 
Teuton assembly, of which we have read in the stories of Witte- 
kind and Henry the Fowler. 

Questions: i. How did Parliament come to meet regularly 
instead of only at the call of the king ? 2. What new principle 
of taxation did the barons introduce ? 3. How did representation 
of all classes in the national assembly begin ? 



1 82 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



THE MEN OF THE FOREST CANTONS 

Men will tell of the shot of Tell 

While the mountains stand in their places. 

Schiller 

The story of Tell has been proved to be a legend, and the 
chroniclers who first wrote it out have been traced down ; but 
the spirit of the Tell story is the spirit of the patriotism which 
was at that time animating the mountain dwellers of Switzerland. 
We must take care lest our striving for historic accuracy deprive 
the child of his rightful literary inheritance. 

Questions: i. What nation was founded by William Tell 
and the men of the forest cantons ? 2. Of what other nations 
have we read of the founding t 



ROBERT BRUCE 

Wha,for Scotland'' s ICiftg and Lazv, 
Freedom's szvord will strongly draw, 
Free-man stand, or Free-man fa\ 
Let him on zuP me ! 

By Oppression'' s woes and pains ! 
By yotir soils in servile chains 1 
We will drain our dearest veins, 
But they shall be free ! 

Robert Burns 

Writer of the great national epic, sole recorder of the most heroic 
period of the national history, . . . fohn Barbour justly remains 
the m.ost famous of the eai'ly poet-chroniclers of Scotland. But for 
his pen the passion of patriotism zuhich gave Scotland a soul for 
four hundred years might have died with Douglas and Bruce. 

Eyre-Todd 



NOTES 183 

As has been indicated in the text, these three pictures of 
Bruce should be used to turn the young reader to Scott's works, 
and to the Scottish ballads, and to Robert Burns as well. It will 
be found that all else of the Bruce story as it is told in the 
chronicles is a tale of bloody battles and weary wars. 

Question : What other movement for patriotism was taking 
place at the time of Robert Bruce's struggle for Scotland ? 



QUEEN PHILIPPA AND THE CITIZENS OF CALAIS 

"//? ^Ae stoiy of the citizens of Calais we see patriotism carried 
to the point of giving one''s life to save one''s country. '''' 

This story has been put in not only for its charm but also to 
round out the conception of patriotism. Let the reader tell in 
what ways the heroes of the previous stories have shown their 
patriotism. Were these men fighting for liberty in general ? No, 
they were giving their lives for the sake of their fellow men. 



JOAN OF ARC 

Thzis the nationality of France was for77ied. — GuiZOT 

" There are many aspects," says Stille, " of the story of 
Jeanne d'Arc . .• . ; yet certainly on no surer basis can her fame 
rest in history than that she was the first apostle in France of 
that sentiment of national unity binding all her children together, 
in opposition to the separatism of the feudal policy, which 
modern Frenchmen believe to be not merely the nurse of all 
patriotism, but the inspiring motive of that ardent desire so 
characteristic of their countrymen at all time to be the leaders 
of civilization in France." 

Question, i. Besides fighting their battles for them, what 
did Joan of Arc do for the French nation .'' 



1 84 PATRIOTS AND TYRANTS 



THE " BEGGARS " OF HOLLAND 

Although this instrument [the Groot Privilegie] was afienvards 
violated, and indeed abolished, it became the foundation of the re- 
ptiblic. . . . It was a noble and temperate vindication of natural 
liberty. . . . To no people in the world more than to the stout burgh- 
ers of Flanders and Holland belongs the honor of having battled 
audaciotisly and perennially in behalf of human eights. — MoTLEY 

Bring out the difference between a repubhc and a monarchy, 
a hereditary system of rulers and an elective system. 

Questions : i. Of the foundation of what two other republics 
have we read the stories ? 2. What was the third republic ? 
3. What was the fourth, and how did the Dutch struggle for liberty 
help in the end tow:ard the founding of the United States ? 

The present volume, and its companion, " Barbarian and 
Noble," have dealt with the political side of the Middle Ages ; 
" Kings and Common Folk " and " Cavalier and Courtier " will 
present the social side ; and " Craftsman and Artist " and " Sea 
Kings and Explorers " will give the economic and industrial 
conditions. 



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